Through The Fire (Guardians, Inc. Book 2) Read online

  The main room was lit by a single hurricane lamp, which provided a dim view of the interior. The cabin was sparsely furnished, resembling more a vacation home than someone’s permanent living space. The first thing Caleb noticed was the Winchester rifle hanging on the wall, the same rifle he imagined as the one Jock had been carrying earlier when he’d saved Sierra from the rattler. A huge bear-skin rug lay in front of the fireplace, along with a plaid sofa that looked as if it had seen better days and a mahogany rocking chair.

  The cabin was quiet, almost too quiet, he thought, for anyone to be inside. And it was almost as cold inside the cabin as it had been outside. He was soaked from head to toe, straight through to the bone cold. He looked at Sierra. Her hair was soaked with rain and flattened against her head, lending her the appearance of a drowned rat. A beautiful drowned rat, Caleb thought as he silently admired her natural beauty.

  “Poppy! It’s me, Caleb! Poppy, are you here?” he called out. Caleb crossed the room and knocked lightly on the bedroom door, finally pushing it open when he received no reply. Although the room was empty, it too was lit with a single hurricane lamp.

  Where was his grandfather? He hated to think of Poppy wandering outside in the storm, cold and hungry. And if he hadn’t taken his medicine, the situation could get downright dangerous. “Shoot! He must be out in the storm!” he said in Sierra’s direction as he exited the bedroom.

  Sierra’s eyes widened. “That’s strange. He must have just been here. This lantern was recently lit and there’s a pot of beans on the stove.”

  Caleb smoothed his hands over his low-cut haircut, his features appearing harsh in the dim light of the hurricane lamp. He knew there was nothing he could do about his grandfather at the moment. Jock was so unpredictable there was no telling where he had run to in the storm. Even if Caleb went out in the storm after him, he had no way of knowing where he’d gone. There were a few other old timers like his grandfather who had chosen to live up in these isolated mountains miles away from Smuggler's Notch. He could only pray that Poppy was taking shelter from the storm in one of their cabins.

  Caleb looked at Sierra, noting her wet clothes and her slight shoulders that were trembling with the cold. She’d freeze to death if she didn’t rid herself of the wet clothes that were now clinging to her like a second skin. “Come here,” he said abruptly, his concern for her well-being overriding anything else that he might feel for her. “You need to get out of those clothes and into some fresh ones. Otherwise you’ll freeze to death.”

  Sierra stopped in her tracks and simply stared at him, her eyes widening at his suggestion. For a moment she resembled a statue. She didn’t move a muscle.

  “That’s not a come on, Sierra,” he said with a shake of his head. In actuality, he wanted to grin.

  “Oh,” she said with a blush, “I wasn’t thinking that. It was...it’s just that-.” Somehow she couldn’t seem to get the words out of her mouth. She looked down at her wet clothes.

  It didn't take a genius to figure out what was bothering her. He imagined she was wondering how she going to get her wet clothes off with him standing right there. And it wasn’t like she had a spare set of clothes in her back pocket. Sierra had always been pretty modest. She shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable.

  Caleb let her off the hook. “C’mere. Let’s get you a towel so you can dry off some and then we’ll dig up some clothes in Poppy’s room,” he suggested, desperately trying to hide his smirk from Sierra. Her shoulders sagged with relief at his suggestion.

  Caleb couldn’t deny his feelings. He thought Sierra was adorable. And he was beginning to worry that he was falling for her all over again.

  ***

  Sierra obeyed Caleb’s command, powerless to stop herself from moving toward him as he held out a towel for her. As she walked toward him she felt the heat of his stare, and when she looked up and met his gaze he stared back at her without flinching. His eyes penetrated hers, as if he was trying to unearth some deep, dark mystery that he could only find an answer to within her eyes. She wanted to look away, hating to break the spell that had been cast over both of them, but knowing that if he looked deep enough he would see the love shining from within her eyes.

  His hands were powerful yet filled with tenderness as he towel-dried her hair. His hands made her feel safe. She felt protected and cared for. It had been a long time since she had felt this way.

  “Are you still cold?” Caleb asked, clearly troubled by her chattering teeth and shivers.

  “A little bit,” she murmured, not wanting to make a fuss over being cold. As it was she’d already inconvenienced him enough for one night.

  “I’ll light a fire. It’ll warm this place up. In the meanwhile you can go into my grandfather’s bedroom and dig up a big shirt or a sweatshirt to put on from his chest. That way you’ll have some privacy.”

  While Caleb began gathering the kindling for the fireplace, Sierra headed to Jock’s bedroom, gently pushing open the door. She felt a little funny invading the sanctity of Jock’s bedroom, but she knew she couldn’t sit around all night in soaking wet clothes. For a moment she paused to orient herself with the dim lighting of the room, straining her eyes to locate a chest. In the corner of the room she spotted an antique chest and walked toward it, softly crying out as she stubbed her big toe on a wooden rocking chair that sat next to the large, cedar bed. Sierra saw an unlit kerosene lamp on the bedside table, and within seconds the room brightened up after she lit the lamp.

  Tentatively she opened the chest, still trying to shake off the feeling that she was rummaging through a stranger’s belongings.

  Don’t be silly, she told herself, it’s not as if Caleb didn’t give his permission. Immediately, she spotted a pile of clothes and grabbed a flannel shirt and a pair of long johns from the top of the pile, ripping off her wet clothes and replacing them with the items. She grinned as she looked at herself in the mirror. She’d had to cinch the long johns at the waist and make a knot with the fabric, but all in all she was happy with being warm and comfy.

  “Is everything okay in there? Did you find anything that fit?” Sierra heard Caleb call out to her and she yelled back, “I’m fine. I’ll be right out.” She then placed the pile of clothes back in the chest, her fingers brushing against a sharp object in the corner of the chest. “Ow,” she said as she reached for the object, spurred on by curiosity and an instinct that she couldn’t ignore. She picked up the framed picture, her fingers tingling as she made contact with the slightly tarnished, onyx and gold frame. Sierra gazed at the vintage photograph with a mixture of awe and delight.

  She heard a knock on the door. “What’s taking you so long? Are you all right?”

  “Come in. I’m decent,” she answered. Caleb appeared in the doorway, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a flannel shirt. Her chest tightened at the sight of him. As always, he made her heart flutter like crazy.

  Somehow, she got a grasp on her emotions and said, “This picture...Caleb, this is my grandmother. She must have been barely twenty in this photo.” Sierra caressed the framed picture with her palm, gently rubbing the glass as if she was caressing Lilliana herself. “She was so beautiful, Caleb. She looks so different...so innocent, so untouched by life and any type of hardship. I never saw her look like this...the Lilliana Rose I knew never looked so...soft.”

  Caleb pointed his index finger toward the man in the photograph, his eyes shuttered and his expression unreadable. “That’s my grandfather. He looks pretty much the same, give or take sixty years of hard living,” Caleb said with a throaty laugh. “But I don’t recognize the look on his face, that look of pure happiness. I guess your grandmother brought out the best in him,” he admitted grudgingly.

  “I know this is going to sound crazy, but when I picked up this picture my fingers got all tingly. And when I looked at Lilliana Rose and Jock standing in front of this chapel...it looks so right to me, almost as if it was -.” Sierra’s voice trailed off as she tried t
o come up with the right words.

  “Meant to be?” Caleb suggested with a grim smile.

  Sierra shook her head to let Caleb know that he had hit the nail right on the head. Her face reflected a wisdom that exceeded her years. The love radiating from Jock and Lilliana Rose in the photographs was unmistakable and heartbreakingly beautiful. Regardless of how she and Caleb felt about their grandparents’ love affair, neither of them could deny the depth of the emotions captured on film.

  Lilliana Rose and Jock had loved as deeply and as fiercely as she and Caleb had loved, thought Sierra. And because that love had been doomed all those years ago, she and Caleb had been forced to pay the price when they’d fallen in love. Tears of rage and despair coursed down her face as she contemplated the vicious circle of betrayal and deception that had caused so much heartache and loss. It was almost too much to bear.

  “Why are you crying?” Caleb kneeled down beside her and gently pulled her face toward him, his tiger eye’s scanning her face and seeing the tears that she couldn’t hide from him. Tears she couldn’t explain without totally breaking down. And she couldn’t risk Caleb seeing her at rock bottom, for he might see the truth reflected in her tear-filled eyes. She'd tried to run away from this truth since the day she left Briarwood. She'd never stopped loving him. Even when Lilliana Rose had convinced her that their love was against the laws of nature and decency, somehow she’d loved him still.

  She felt a huge lump gather in her throat and she struggled to regain her composure. So much had been lost, she thought. Clearly, Jock and her grandmother had been in love, so much in love that at one point they had vowed to spend the rest of their lives together. And by some quirk of fate, love had slipped through their fingertips, haunting them for the remainder of their lives.

  “I’m crying because two people who should’ve been together...as one...were separated. And yet they loved. Through the years, despite everything...they loved. But they could never really love each other because that love was in the past, supposedly dead and buried.”

  Caleb looked deeply into her eyes, and for a moment she swore he was going to kiss her. His lips hovered dangerously near hers, almost touching but not touching. All too quickly the moment passed, and rather than touch her he asked, “Who are you talking about Sierra? Lilliana Rose and Jock? Or you and me?”

  Sierra swallowed nervously, her eyes looking downward instead of into his probing, tawny eyes. If she looked into his eyes she wouldn’t be able to avoid telling him the truth. She had been talking about Jock and Lilliana Rose, but in a sense she’d also been talking about the two of them. In her mind the two couples were forever connected, their fates inextricably linked by the sins of the past.

  When she finally looked up she found herself mesmerized by his brilliant eyes, soulful and deep, yet filled with a brazenness that took her by surprise. He was staring a hole right through her, straight through her heart and into her very soul.

  Sierra was going to seize this opportunity, regardless of the consequences. She was going to suck up her pride, her old-fashioned sensibilities and take action. She was going to kiss Caleb as if it was the last time their lips would meet. Doing so would show him that she still had feelings for him—ones that ran deep. It wouldn’t erase the past, but it might show Caleb her sincerity.

  She pressed her lips against his and reached for the collar of his shirt, pulling him a bit closer toward her. She inhaled the woodsy scent of him. The kiss was full of tenderness and yearning. He kissed her back, running his hands through her damp hair as their lips connected.

  After a few minutes they pulled apart. Sierra couldn’t ignore the look emanating from Caleb’s eyes. Confusion mixed with uncertainty. She shouldn’t have initiated the kiss, especially when there was so much unsettled between them. Suddenly she felt self-conscious. She was wearing her heart on her sleeve.

  “That probably wasn’t the best idea,” she said in a soft voice.

  “It’s okay. Neither of us were thinking Sierra,” Caleb observed with a grimace. “We were just feeling. It’s hard sometimes to put the past behind us.”

  They sat on the floor, neither one of them speaking, both deep in thought. The storm continued to rage outside, the sounds of rain lashing violently against the windows as chaotic as the emotions swirling inside the room.

  Sierra reached out and outlined Caleb’s lips with her fingertip, marveling at his masculine beauty and strength. She wished that she could summon the courage to tell him the truth about Lilliana’s deception. But it still felt like an unspeakable secret.

  Would it sound trite if she told him that their breakup had been a mistake? Her mistake. She could try and make him understand that she had trusted and loved her grandmother so deeply that she had believed the pack of lies Lilliana told her. Would he understand? Or would he simply shrug and say that it didn’t matter because it was all water under the bridge. Would he react to the news as emotionally as she had reacted? Or would his face turn hard and cold as it had on the day she’d reentered his life?

  Her eyelids became heavy and she tried in vain to shake off her sleepiness. She didn’t want to give in to the sandman. She wanted to stay up and savor every moment of being with Caleb, just the two of them. She hoped at least that her dreams were filled with Caleb.

  Finally Sierra broke the silence. “I’m pretty tired, Caleb.”

  “Why don’t you settle in here and I’ll crash in the living room? That way if Poppy comes back he’ll see me first.”

  Sierra nodded. The drama of the last few days had caught up with her. She was suddenly feeling a bit lost. At the moment, Caleb was the only person who could make her feel better.

  The thought crossed her mind that it was dangerous to dream of a man that she knew she could never have—a man she would never stop loving. A man she truly adored. If only she could be granted a second chance with Caleb, she thought through a sleepy haze, if only we could pick up the pieces and start fresh. If only, she thought groggily, she could make him understand that she hadn’t betrayed him or stopped loving him. And she never would.

  ***

  “I know that I have no right to ask, but can you just stay with me for a little bit until I fall asleep?” Sierra asked Caleb, her dark eyes filled with a loneliness that touched his heart and sent shivers down his spine. At this moment she needed him, Caleb thought, and despite his promise to himself that he wouldn’t allow her to ensnare him in her web, he knew he was caught. He was responding to a part of himself that he’d long ago buried - the part of him that believed in love and second chances. The part of him that he’d come to believe was gone forever, a casualty of loving another human being too deeply, too strongly. She needed him and he was going to answer her call.

  Caleb nodded and picked her up in his arms, carrying her over in three short steps to his grandfather’s cedar bed, the one that Jock had built himself decades earlier. He reverently laid her on the bed, treating her as if she was a piece of fine porcelain. He gently placed the comforter on top of her. He watched the way her hair fanned out around her head, creating a halo effect that nearly robbed him of breath.

  Without uttering a word he sat down beside her on the bed, cradling her in his arms and softly humming in her ear. Sierra let out a contented sigh, almost purring like a pampered cat as Caleb softly stroked her hair and worshiped her with his eyes. Her eyes began to flutter and he knew she was seconds away from sleep.

  “I loved you so,” Caleb blurted out, shattering the stillness with his declaration. The words just slipped out and he couldn’t recall them no matter how badly he might want to take them back. They were his truth, his reality and he needed to let her know how he’d felt. How he still felt? he silently asked himself.

  “I know,” she whispered.

  Caleb watched Sierra as she drifted off to sleep. He reached for the down comforter at the foot of the bed, trying not to disturb her sleep as he did so. He didn’t want Sierra to wake up in the middle of the night with the chills.
And although he felt certain that Jock wouldn’t surface at the cabin for a few days, he would stay up for a while just in case he came back and was startled by the sight of people in his cabin.

  Tenderly, he laid the extra blanket on top of Sierra’s body, silently admiring her radiant beauty as she lay nestled on her side in the fetal position. She was like a rare diamond, Caleb mused. A diamond that sparkled both in sunshine and in shadow. And she was still a million light years out of his reach. Classy. Sophisticated. Well off. Sierra Jackson was polar opposites from the oil rigger’s son who'd had to work his butt off to make his way in life.

  “It was a mistake, Caleb,” she murmured as she tossed and turned in the bed, restlessly kicking the blanket off of her body. “You and I...it was all a mistake. It should never have happened.”

  No! he silently screamed. A mistake? It should never have happened? He’d loved her unconditionally. On countless occasions in the past Sierra had professed her undying love to him. And now she was telling him that it had been one huge mistake, something that she regretted. She’d really played him for a fool.

  On some level Sierra’s startling words confirmed all of his darkest fears and doubts. For the first time in eight years he didn’t have any doubts about why Sierra had left him. In her eyes their entire relationship was nothing more than a mistake, something that should never have happened. She’d used him eight years ago, perhaps just for the thrill of hanging around with a guy from the other side of the tracks.

  How could he have been so wrong about the warm and gentle girl he’d fallen in love with, a woman he still loved?

  Angrily, he got up from the bed and paced the hardwood floors, his mind working overtime to process his chaotic thoughts. He went out into the living room and stoked the fire, all the while kicking himself for being such a sucker. When would he learn his lesson? he asked himself. Tonight he’d almost decided to abandon his plans for revenge because for one fleeting moment he’d believed in redemption and second chances. Once again he’d fallen under Sierra’s spell.