Caden's Secret

by Jadyn Chase

  I sauntered around the Jeep and got into the driver’s seat, but the prospect of taking her where I knew she needed to go offered me no great motivation. I would do just about anything to avoid it, but a single glance in her direction told me I had to.

  I started the motor and drove up Smokey Ridge. I parked in front of the house and got out. How long did I have before the storm hit? I sidled around the Jeep and leaned in to unclip Caroline’s seatbelt.

  When I stood up, Archer appeared at my side. “Hey, cuz. Who’s the dame?”

  “This is that new Forest Service ranger that just moved into the cabin in Whistler’s Gulch. She busted Barret Lynch trapping bears just over the fence. They came after her, and I just got in a fight with him and his brothers down the Ridge there.”

  He eyed her over his shoulder. “She don’t look so hot. What’s the matter? Is she dead?”

  I bit the words off under my breath. “I wouldn’t have brought her back here if she was. Now get out of my way.”

  I hoisted Caroline out of the Jeep and headed up the porch steps to the front door. I kicked the screen open and walked inside. My Ma froze behind the kitchen counter when she saw me, and her eyes nearly dropped out of her head.

  I climbed the stairs to the second story. I made my way down the hall to the guest room overlooking the yard. I laid Caroline on the pillows and went to the bathroom to fetch a towel. I propped her up and spread the towel under her head so she wouldn’t bleed on the sheets.

  I stood back to study her. She lay still and unresponsive. She didn’t appear so vivacious and attractive now, but that was just an illusion. The woman who first captivated my mind hid under that silent exterior. She waited to spring to life again as soon as she recovered from her injury.

  Somewhere far away, something snapped inside me looking down at her. I kissed her. I might not have gone all the way with her or even voiced my commitment to her, but I crossed the line within my own heart. I couldn’t go back. She changed me for life.

  If nothing else ever happened between us, I would never be the same person I was before today. I defended her with my life. I would gladly have died out there to save her or even to wreak vengeance on the men who hurt her. She meant more to me than kith and kin and hearth and home.

  If loving her and keeping her safe meant walking away from the Ridge and never associating with dragonkind again, that would be a small price to pay for the pleasure of being with her.

  A soft voice touched my ear. “Is that her, son?”

  I didn’t turn around. How fitting that he should be the one to come to me at this moment. Ma probably ran panting from the house to find him. She probably told him I showed up with some human woman and sent him to bring me to my senses. Archer was probably lurking on the stairs waiting for the roof to cave in.

  He didn’t shout or curse or threaten. He never did. That wasn’t his way. He was too much of a man for that. Just standing there watching me did more to convince me of the error of my ways than anything he could say.

  I couldn’t go back on my decision now. Caroline was here on Smokey Ridge and she wasn’t going away, not if I had anything to say about it.

  I bowed my head and closed my eyes, but her visage still imprinted on my mind. “Yeah, Pop. That’s her.”

  “What happened?”

  I heaved a broken sigh. Now that I got into the same room with him, the torment of facing the inevitable hit me like a ton of bricks. I nearly lost my life fighting four Lynches and I almost lost her.

  “The Lynches surprised me down the Ridge,” I murmured. “The four boys came to get Caroline. They told me to hand her over and they promised to leave peacefully if I didn’t intervene.”

  “You didn’t do that, I hope.”

  “No, Pop,” I replied. “I didn’t hand her over and I didn’t provoke them, either.”

  He chuckled softly. “You? You didn’t provoke them? I don’t believe it.”

  “Okay, I did provoke them.” I turned around and locked my eyes on him. “I provoked them, but I swear to you, Pop, I didn’t strike the first blow. I was unarmed and they were all carrying guns.”

  “How did you survive, then?”

  I swiveled toward the bed and gazed down on Caroline. “She was armed. She shot two of them before Barret hit her in the head. He knocked her out and then I….. I ……” I couldn’t say it.

  He waited. “Did she see you?”

  “No, Sir. I’m certain she didn’t. She was out cold through the whole thing.”

  He sauntered to the bed and peered down at her. “How bad is it?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to look at it and there was too much blood. I was more concerned with getting her to safety.”

  He nodded. If Caroline had been anyone else, Ma and the other ladies would have been swarming all over the place to get Caroline’s head cleaned and stitched and patched as good as new. No doubt Pop told Ma to keep out of the way until he figured out exactly what happened and why I dared to bring a human into our house.

  He bent at the hips and inspected the wound before he straightened up and smacked his lips. “We’ll fix her up, but she can’t stay here. You know that, don’t you, son?”

  “But, Pop!” I exclaimed. “She has to. She can’t go back to Whistler’s Gulch and she can’t go back to town. There’s nowhere safe for her from the Lynches. You know that as well as I do. The minute she sets foot off the Ridge, they’ll come after her. It’s only a matter of time before they get her on her own where we can’t protect her.”

  His eyebrows flew up. “We? We aren’t going to protect her or any human, son. She’s Other. You never should have brought her here in the first place.”

  I hardened my resolve to stand up to him. I never countered an order from him in my life. I never talked back or even thought about contravening his wishes—until now. This was different.

  If I changed, it started with him. I ceased to be the man who could fall in line and obey the way the Clan expected me to. I became something outside the realm of dragons. I didn’t need to do anything with Caroline. I was already outcast beyond redemption.

  I squared my shoulders at Pop. I dwarfed him by inches, but he still struck terror into my heart the way he did when I was a little boy. My voice wavered, but I couldn’t back down, not for anything, not where she was concerned. “She got into this fix for our sake, Pop. She found those traps investigating our complaints, and she busted Barret trapping in our territory. That makes her one of ours. We have to…..”

  “We don’t have to do anything, son,” he boomed, “and she’s not one of ours. She never will be.”

  “We have to protect her,” I insisted. “We can’t leave her to twist in the wind. All you have to do is extend the Clan’s protection to her and the Lynches will back off. I already told them…..”

  He silenced me with one twitch of his eyebrow. “You already told them what?”

  I clapped my mouth shut and lowered my gaze to the carpet. I let my mouth run away with me. I shouldn’t have said that, but I couldn’t unsay it now.

  “You told them she was under the Clan’s protection? Is that it?”

  I mumbled into my collar. “Yes, Pop.”

  He stood before me for so long without saying anything that I feared the worst. I dared not look at his face. What would he do now? Would he throw me out for having the audacity to tell the Lynches that Caroline was under our protection when there was no way on God’s green Earth she ever could be?

  He sniffed. “All right, son. She can stay here until she heals, but she can’t stay here forever. I don’t need to explain this to you. Sooner or later, she’ll have to go back to her own world where we can’t protect her. I won’t say anything more about this now, but rest assured I’ll have something to say to you later.”

  He strode out of the room. The instant his foot touched the stairs, Ma and half a dozen other women streamed through the door. They surrounded the bed all talking and working as fast as the
y could go. They descended on Caroline and shunted me to the periphery.

  I shrank back beyond the threshold and watched from the landing. Caroline couldn’t be in more capable hands, but my heart ached pulling away from her. I wanted to be in there helping her, but the best way I could help her now was to leave her to the experts.

  Pop would have something to say to me, all right. Caroline would heal, and when that happened, she would return to her own world where she belonged. What happened to me after that was anybody’s guess.

  7

  Caroline

  Sunshine played on my closed eyelids. I stared into a haze of red and gold before I fully realized I was awake. I tried to blink, but the light blinded me for a second. I was awake. I was alive. Why should that surprise me so much?

  I fought against a sticky substance to pry my eyes open. I found myself gazing through a window framed by gauzy white curtains. The sun streamed through it and warmed my face.

  Comfort and contentment filled my soul—all except that stabbing pain in my head. It hurt worse when I squinted or flinched. I willed myself to lie still in that bubble of luxury and softness.

  I reclined against a pile of pillows. Inch by inch, I became aware that I was tucked into a magnificent bed. A white flannel nightgown covered my body. Crisp cotton sheets and a hand-stitched quilt enfolded me in bliss.

  I relaxed there for what seemed like ages. I watched the shadows creep across the windowsill. The less I moved, the less my head hurt.

  I had no idea where I was. For the moment, I really didn’t care. I was safe and comfortable. After a while, I squirmed in the bed and my hair splayed across my cheeks. I raised my hand to push it out of the way and I touched something scratchy on my hairline.

  I explored my forehead with my fingers and found a line of sharp prickles embedded in my scalp. They left a line of knots running up my head toward my crown, and they hurt. Stitches. Someone stitched me up.

  I had to think hard to remember what happened. The fight lurked far back in my memory. I struggled to piece together the last frantic minutes. I shot two of those men before Barret….

  A soft knock on the door woke me from my ruminations and a curvy woman entered the room. She wore a full-length dress covered by a lace-ruffled apron. She kept her sandy hair tied into a bun behind her head, and she beamed at me with glowing pink cheeks. “Well! You certainly slept well. We’ve all been counting down the days waiting for you to wake up.”

  My eyes flew open. “Days? Is that how long I’ve been out?”

  “Two days exactly,” she clipped. “Let me check the sutures. Yep. They’re drying over nicely. Just be careful you don’t bump them or scratch them. We don’t want to have to sew you up again.”

  I gasped. “You? You sewed me up?”

  “You’re darn tootin’.” She gave me a brisk nod while she folded clean sheets on a chair across the room. “Me and Betty and Frida and a bunch of other girls down the Ridge. Frida did all the doctor training at the training college in Chattanooga, but she couldn’t get her license on account of being pregnant with little Amelia. You know how it is.”

  I stared up at her. “Thank you. It was very kind of you to take care of me.”

  “Well, we couldn’t have you bleeding all over the place, could we?” She burst into merry peals of laughter. “What else were we going to do when you turned up in that condition?”

  I looked around. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

  “This is Smokey Ridge, darling, and I’m Margaret Kelly, Caden’s mother. He brought you here after your fight against the Lynches. He didn’t feel right taking you anywhere else with them still hunting you, and he was right.”

  “Where is Caden?” I asked.

  Her expression changed in a flash. The cheery smile froze on her face. She held it in a parody of a smile, and her eyes sparked when she looked at me. Her voice came out hard and edgy. “He’s out hunting with his brother.”

  “Can I see him when he gets back?” I couldn’t understand the meaning behind that look. “I’d like to thank him for getting me out of danger.”

  She patted a sheet against her stomach. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, dear.”

  “Why?” I began to pick up a very different current to this conversation, and I didn’t like it at all.

  She put the sheet down and turned to face me. The pinched, guarded defiance faded from her countenance, and she bestowed on me a genuine smile of understanding and sympathy. “It’s not a good idea for you to see Caden. There are things about him you don’t understand. He brought you here to protect you and it was kindly done. None of us blames him for that.”

  I frowned up at her. “Why on Earth would you blame him for it?”

  She eased forward and sat down on the edge of the bed. She patted my leg through the quilt. “There are things in these mountains you don’t understand. That’s all I can tell you, but you probably won’t see Caden again if my husband Xavier has anything to say about it.”

  My jaw dropped. “Why? Why won’t he let me see Caden?”

  That smile maddened me out of all proportion. The more patronizingly understanding she acted, the more she irritated me. “You just don’t understand, darling.”

  “No, I don’t,” I snapped. “I don’t understand because you won’t explain it to me. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to see Caden.”

  Ever so slowly, she got to her feet. She drew herself up to her full height and pointed at me. “That’s why.” Then she walked out of the room.

  I stared at the closed door in stunned silence. What the hell did she mean by that?

  Even without thinking too hard or hurting my brain, I knew. I wasn’t allowed to see Caden because I reacted so strongly to being told I couldn’t see him. For one reason or another known best to themselves, they wanted to keep us apart.

  I kissed him—or, put another way, I let him kiss me. I certainly didn’t stop it. That guy attracted me like nobody’s business. I wanted to kiss him since that first day he warned me in front of the Forest Service office that the Lynches would come after me. I wanted to kiss him then. I wanted to kiss him a dozen times since then.

  He followed me in the forest, and when he kissed me, I sank into it like I’d known all along that it was meant to be. He must have felt it, too.

  So why was his family so set against us having anything to do with each other? Why would they stop us seeing each other?

  I picked my head up off the pillow and another stabbing lance of pain pierced me in the eye. I wasn’t going anywhere for a while, but when I got out of this bed, I made up my mind to find out what was really going on.

  I settled into the pillows and turned my gaze toward the window. I went back to studying the shadows inching toward sunset, but in my head, I replayed the events of the last….Margaret said I was out for two days. That meant the fight happened three days ago and I met Caden four days ago.

  I saw him once at the office. Then I encountered him in the woods near that trap. That was all. I kissed him on our second meeting. When I put it like that, it sounded sudden and unthinkable. In reality, though, it fit into the larger scheme of things. It felt right at the time. It felt right in hindsight, too. If I went through the same sequence of events, I would probably do exactly the same thing.

  I would kiss him again, given the chance. Maybe his family knew that. They realized we had feelings for each other. Why else would I get my panties in a twist over being forbidden to see him?

  Caden wouldn’t let that happen. He would come and find me when he got home from hunting. As soon as he found out I was awake, he would come to me.

  I couldn’t be wrong about that. I couldn’t be wrong about him. He wouldn’t let his parents stop him from seeing me. He wasn’t made that way.

  A sliver of doubt wormed into my thoughts. What if I was wrong about him? What if he turned out to be a flake and only brought me here as a courtesy for doing his people a favor? What if that kiss meant
nothing to him and I got worked up about him over nothing?

  Maybe he was the one who decided not to see me. Maybe that was Margaret’s polite way of telling me to forget the whole thing. Maybe Caden was a player who toyed with a woman’s heart and then moved on as soon as he got her interested. Stranger things happened every day.

  The sun sloped behind the trees where the forest surrounded the compound. Trucks and Jeeps came and went out in the world. I drifted in a haze of impressions and half-formed thoughts. I ceased to be a real person. I condensed to a speck of awareness observing all these signs of life. They spun around me in the endless rhythm of people and creatures and elements, but I no longer counted myself a part of them.

  Toward sunset, Margaret brought me a tray loaded with one of the best dinners I ever ate in my life. She sat in the rocking chair by my bed and talked to me.

  “Morris Abernathy came up to me in the grocery store this afternoon,” she told me. “He asked me about you. He was starting to get worried about you because you hadn’t turned up for work. Then he said he heard Archer and Christian talking at the Watering Hole, and he overheard them mention that you were up here. He asked me if it was true.”

  I perked up my ears. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him the truth. I told him you and Caden got in a fight with the Lynches, and that you got shot in the head, and that Caden brought you here to stop the bleeding and because he was worried the Lynches might come after you.”

  I swallowed hard. “And what did he say to that?”

  “He said if you really suffered a gunshot wound to the head that you should be transferred to the hospital in Atlanta.”

  I could barely get my voice to work. “And what did you say?”

  Her eyes twinkled grinning at me. “I told him they might be able to fix your head, but that they wouldn’t be able to stop the Lynches killing you anytime it suited them.”