Finally at the top of the hill, he paused to catch his breath. London stood several feet from him, her back turned. As he approached, he felt a deep clutch in his belly seeing her poised so close to the edge of a precipitous drop.
It was hardwired into the genes, he supposed, to protect the young.
Unwilling to startle her, he didn’t try to disguise the sound of his footsteps moving through the drying grasses. She glanced over, and he could read the unhappiness in her expression.
Shit, he thought. Shit.
As he came to a halt alongside her, she tipped up her head, her gaze on a red-tailed hawk that sailed overhead and then floated on the up currents coming from the canyon at their feet. Miles of wilderness were spread out before them: craggy mountain ridges, deep ravines bristling with evergreens, silty narrow valleys.
“Quite a view, huh?”
His question hung in the air a second before falling to the ground like a stone. God, he thought, spearing his hand through his hair. Yesterday he’d believed he’d made a tenuous connection with her, but now it felt as if they were back at square one.
He was no good at this.
Shay’s words echoed in his head. Then get good. Figure it out.
Once again forking up his hair with his hand, he wondered if her voice would be in there for the rest of his life. I love you. I’m in love with you.
He squeezed his eyes shut, the memory of her sharing that with him mainlining more shock and awe into his bloodstream. Last night, it had driven him to lay claim to her in his bed. Today, he felt no less ownership.
Just something else he didn’t deserve.
Opening his eyes, he took in his daughter’s profile. She continued to contemplate that hawk still surfing the wind. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine the creature enjoyed the play—rising, floating, soaring—as an exercise in self-determination.
It should come as no surprise that London would envy that independence. After all, she was no longer a little girl, but a teen just a few short years from adulthood. Sighing, he struggled with what to do. He’d failed the girl before...
But that didn’t give him a license to fail her again.
He cleared his throat. She shot him a quick look.
“I have this idea,” he said. “An offer.”
Her brows rose. “What kind of offer?”
So suspicious. “I thought I’d give you three wishes. Reasonable wishes,” he added, when her eyes flared wide.
Tucking her fingers in the front pockets of her shorts, London tilted her head as if trying to puzzle him out. “Why would you do that?”
He shrugged, deciding it would be unwise of him to admit he was looking for a window into her head and heart. As well as a way to make her at least a little happier. “I’ll pick one and make it come true.”
“No.” She frowned. “In stories, the picker gets to have all three wishes—the benefactor’s only contribution is to provide.”
“This is a different kind of story.”
“Figures,” she muttered.
Ignoring that, he continued, “Tell me your wish number one.”
Her long-suffering sigh rolled right off his back. “Indulge me,” he said, prodding his daughter.
Her gaze shifted from him to the mountaintop view. “I don’t want to leave here,” she replied, sweeping her arm to indicate the breathtaking surroundings. “This.”
It didn’t exactly surprise him, but... “At the risk of seeing Colton again?”
“I have a solution to that problem,” she said. “Keep my chin up, swing my hips, smile.”
Was that what Shay had been doing this afternoon? He recalled her cheery attitude. Fake it until you make it.
He despised the idea of Shay faking anything. It had been his privilege to see inside her private self and the idea she was papering over that now felt all kinds of fucked-up. Pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, he returned to the matter at hand. “What’s your second reasonable wish?”
“Go to a regular school like a regular student. Public school, where they have proms and a tennis team and a literary magazine. Amy says at hers there’s a green energy club.”
“You’re interested in green energy?”
She shrugged. “I looked up what your company is doing in Qatar. I’m thinking maybe I should learn more about it.”
Jace rubbed at his chest. Hell if the kid didn’t touch him at the oddest times. Book clubs. Green energy. The idea that she wanted to be “like, a family” with him. Well, with him and Shay.
Shay.
He pushed the thought of her from his head and instead focused on reasonable wishes. Unfortunately, while the first two London had asked for might seem reasonable to her, they were beyond his power to grant. He was going overseas, she was slated for boarding school.
There was only one shot left. Of course, like an idiot he’d set himself up for failure, hadn’t he? If on this third round she posed something equally undoable from his perspective, then he’d prove himself once again to be lousy dad material.
He was boxed into a corner with only himself to blame.
With an air of fatalism, he turned to face his daughter. “Wish number three?”
She looked down, using the toe of her sneaker to draw something in the dusty earth. Probably an image of him, he decided, impaled by something painful. “This is difficult,” she mused.
Naturally, choosing between either skewering him with a sword or cleaving him in two with an ax wasn’t easy. “Go ahead,” he said, between gritted teeth. “I’m all ears.”
“Maybe...” Her head came up and she looked at him with her big brown eyes. “Maybe you can teach me how to do that magic trick.”
Dumbfounded, Jace stared at her. “You’re taking it easy on me.”
She shrugged. “Could be.”
“I’m terrible at that trick,” he pointed out.
“Yeah.” A smile hovered over her mouth. “So maybe it’s something we can practice together.”
He clutched at his heart again, this time the feeling not a touch, but a blow. She had actually cleaved him with an ax—but with the kind of ax that was giving him a second chance with her. Something we can practice together.
Once, when he was helping his old man with a home remodel, he’d been standing in the kitchen and given a sledgehammer and the direction to remove an exterior wall that the resident abhorred. For a big kid loaded with testosterone, it had been a match made in heaven. He’d swung the shit out of the tool, breaching all the way to daylight with the first hit and the sunlight bursting through the hole had nearly blinded him. Yet he’d swung again and again and again.
It felt like he was the wall now. And it was London with the sledge, busting his old barriers so that a new day could come in.
His daughter, in her way, had extended her hand to him.
He stared at her, aware if he similarly reached out that his former solitary life was going to change. Mistakes would be made. The path wouldn’t always—would maybe never—be completely clear. But if he took the chance, the magnificent sunshine would surround them and he could have summer all year round.
It turned out to be such a simple decision.
“Yes,” he said, his voice hoarse. “To the mountains, to regular school, to the magic trick.”
Her eyes went round. “I get all three?”
“You get more.” Jace paused a moment, then said the words that had been walled up inside him for fifteen years. “I love you, London.” With that, he pulled his daughter into his arms, enfolding her against him. He pressed a kiss on the top of her hair. “I love you.”
“Jace,” he heard her whisper against his shirt, then, “Dad.”
Above them, the hawk keened a wild cry that sounded, to Jace, full of joy.
SHAY WALKED HER siblings to their cars, her face aching after so many smiles. Her sisters and Ryan were waved off first, leaving only Brett. Jace and London were nowhere to be seen.
Risking permanent cheek damage, she grinned at her brother. “Thanks. That surprise was really nice of you guys.”
Brett shrugged. A yellow butterfly fluttered past his nose and then came back to settle on his shoulder. He froze, appearing bemused as it slowly pumped its wings as if it had all the time in the world and her brother was the gentlest of souls.
“The average butterfly has a life span of two weeks,” she told him.
“Yeah?” Her brother continued to contemplate the insect. “‘Gather ye rosebuds’ and all that, my friend,” he said softly, speaking, she presumed, to the still-calm yellow fellow.
But the knowledge struck Shay that her love affair hadn’t lasted much longer than a butterfly enjoyed the sunshine. It made her melancholy, and yet she was still glad she’d gathered flowers when she could. Her throat tightened.
Inside I’d place a bed of petals plucked from summer roses.
“Since we’re sharing trivia,” Brett said, “there’s a moth caterpillar that will wait thirty years before forming a cocoon and becoming an adult.”
“Huh.” Shay was impressed. “It’s got you beat on that becoming an adult thing.”
He laughed, which pleased her, since he had a tendency to brood, but it disturbed the butterfly. The insect rose from his shoulder and made its way toward the woods. Brett’s gaze followed it, and he sighed. “I admit it’s beautiful here.”
“It’s worth saving,” she said.
Instead of answering, her brother changed tactics. “What’s up with you and the flatlander? Mac is muttering in dire tones.”
“Mac always mutters. I think ‘Dire’ is her middle name.”
“Still, you’re going to France.”
“You guys say it like I’m going to the guillotine. The French Revolution was over long ago.”
“I’ll take your word for it. But we don’t want to lose you.”
She had to clear another obstruction in her throat. Oh, she’d miss him. “I think I just need some time away.”
“Try a walk in the woods. Have you done that recently?”
With Jace. She shrugged. “Maybe I will.”
“Well, gotta go.” He gave her a soft punch in the arm.
She clapped her hand over it and screeched as he meant her to. “Ouch!”
“All’s right with my world,” he said, and turned to his truck, whistling.
By the time he’d driven off, Jace and London had not reappeared, though his SUV was still in its original place. Try a walk in the woods.
She would follow that advice, she decided, and strolled out of the clearing. It was unlikely she’d come back here before making her way to France. It would remind her too much of Jace and London. Though she supposed she’d forever hear a hammer stroke and think of him. Or glimpse a girl with a coltish stride and wonder how London was doing.
Instead of dwelling on the Jennings, as she followed one of the old trails she returned her thoughts to the DVD and the “adoption paper.” Both made her smile. Still, neither assuaged that smear of guilt she felt on her soul. Dell Walker had been a kind and generous man—albeit not perfect, as no one was—and she’d let him down. You’ll be the death of me.
Although she was sure that those last words were ones he wouldn’t want her to linger over, the fact was that they were seared by fire and fear in her mind.
She’d reached the A-frame cabin where Jace had kissed her the first day they visited the property. At that time, though the attraction had been palpable, her heart had remained her own.
Where had she gone wrong? What had been the first wrong move? She supposed it started with that tipsy talk about her birthday. Before then, she’d always been so secretive about her dislike of the day. After that night, her inner self had unfolded, revelation after revelation spread out for him to see. Now he knew everything, from the circumstances of her birth to the circumstances of the fire and Dell’s subsequent death.
He knew about her love for him.
It no longer seemed to matter that she’d shared that, too. When he was gone, she’d be miserable without him and London. If she’d kept her counsel, it wouldn’t have made a whit of difference.
She should head back now and find them, she decided. But Brett’s butterfly—or one just like it—suddenly appeared before her, zigzagging in front of her face before darting farther into the woods. On a whim, she followed it, aware she hadn’t gone this far into the forest since the day of the fire.
Then, though, she’d actually gone much farther. Beyond the last of the Walker cabins. She’d turn back when she came to the twelfth, she promised herself. It would be good to check on it. Poppy said at her one and only inspection months ago that it seemed to be a haven for wild animals and maybe the kids in the area. Everybody who grew up in the mountains knew—since it was a tradition from time immemorial—that teens would find their secret gathering places.
She hiked to the more secluded cabins, trying each doorknob to ensure they remained secure. There was the expected peeling paint and dislodged shingles, but other than those, all appeared well.
Finally, there was only one left, a quarter mile from the second-to-the-last. As she approached, pushing through branches and over creeping ground cover, her foot caught on a root and she fell to the ground, crashing through some dried branches to land just a few feet from the cabin with a loud “oomph.”
Given that she thought herself alone, she didn’t hold back the litany of curses that fell from her lips as she picked herself up. Bending over to inspect her scraped and bloody knees, she heard running steps from the back of the cabin and then the catch of a small engine. A dirt bike, she guessed, a popular mode of transportation for the mountain kids.
Her head lifted, and through the trees, she saw movement. Two boys, it appeared, riding tandem and taking off in the opposite direction.
Well, Poppy had been right. Kids were using the cabin.
Shay would have to find a way to lock it tight. Tradition or no, it wasn’t smart for the kids to do their squatting on Walker land. It was remote enough to be a real danger if someone got hurt.
Straightening, she directed her attention to the condition of the bungalow. Not good. The door was ajar, and listing on its hinges. Windowpanes were broken.
Moldering was the only word for it. A single breath might blow it down.
And as she took in one herself, she smelled it.
Her heart seized. Her muscles froze. Four letters blasted across the surface of her brain, a neon-styled warning.
Fire.
The scent of it, coming from the direction of the cabin, was like a paralyzing drug. Shay turned so cold she wouldn’t have been surprised to see snow. But that would have been welcome. Snow could put out flames.
Instead, it was summer. There was wind. Both two more ingredients that added to the recipe for disaster.
That last thought broke her free from inertia. With her heart pounding again, she fumbled for her phone in her back pocket. “Come on, come on,” she muttered to herself.
When it finally slid from the confines of her pocket, she dialed 911.
And did not connect.
Cursing the spotty mountain cell coverage, she tried a second time. Same result.
Then, knowing a text had a better chance of getting through, she sent one off to her brother. But he’d driven away, she reminded herself.
Jace, presumably, was closer.
She texted him, too: Fire at the twelfth cabin. Help.
But she had to do more. Even if neither of the texts went through, professional assistance was a long way
off. She didn’t dare lose a chance to prevent the spread of fire from destroying the remainder of the Walker legacy. She had enough blame on her shoulders.
Though flames were not yet apparent, the burning smell was stronger. Gathering her courage, she raced forward and slipped inside the structure.
Her feet stuttered to a halt. The floor of the cabin was littered with refuse: dried leaves, soda cans, a few beer bottles. In one corner was a pile of old blankets and a ragged sleeping bag. In the opposite, dumped onto the upturned lid of a battered metal trash can lid, lay thick bundles of used lined paper. Six discarded three-ring binders were tossed nearby.
The pages were just beginning to flame.
At the sight of them, Shay froze again and a flashback dropped over her like a burlap sack. As in her nightmare, fire crackled and hissed at her back. Terror had her firmly in its grip and she stood, rooted to the ground, ready to be eaten alive. The smoke stung her eyes and filled her nose and tears cascaded down her cheeks as she waited to die.
Then she heard her name. She jolted, her head whipping around to find the source. There was nothing but the wall of flames behind her and the enclosing woods around her. Which way? Where to go?
Then she was running, tripping on her feet, getting lashed by branches. Her name again. The demon came into her line of sight, rushing toward her, mouth open, arms out, claws reaching.
She screamed as it touched her. Pulled her close.
“Girl, you’ll be the death of me.” It was her father!
Relief tore the sobs from her chest. She clung to him, for the first time believing she might survive, after all.
He swept her up in his arms as she continued to cry. “We’ve got to get to the truck,” he said in her ear as he began running through the woods.
Still shaking with fear, Shay held on tighter.
Dell Walker didn’t halt his stride. But he spoke to her in soothing tones. “You’re safe, honey. Daddy’s got you. Daddy loves you. We’ll be fine.”
* * *
Make Me Lose Control Page 29