by Susan Stoker
Earlier, the children’s parents had arrived at the school’s day care center before the storm hit. Molly, the latest hire and a teacher, had felt a sudden migraine coming on, rendering her dizzy and unable to do much of anything. Blaine, her fellow teacher, had driven Molly back to Clayton, the nearby town where they all lived. That left Kara to clean up the day care area and prep it for Saturday, when Blaine was scheduled to come in to assist with the children at the day care.
Her career as a teacher had been a major disappointment to her father, Jud Knight. His prejudice against anyone with less money than he had always hung over her head. She hated her father’s arrogance toward those who were poor and struggling. Thank goodness her mother, Pamela, was the opposite! She had supported her daughter’s dream of helping these underprivileged children get three square meals a day plus an education. Kara wasn’t sure what she’d have done if her Mom’s support hadn’t been there.
Kara learned about her mother’s background over time. She revealed that she’d come from a hardscrabble family and had hauled herself up through the ranks to become the owner of Clayton’s favorite, super-successful bakery. Kara’s father had met her, admired her spunk and her ability to create luscious baked goods and a thriving business, and wooed her until she gave in and married him.
Kara was just like her mom—feisty, independent, and wanting to make a difference in her community. Thank goodness Pamela had given the green light to Kara’s desire to be a teacher. She also supported her wish to work with Delos, the world’s largest charity organization, to bring a school and a day care center to this impoverished area of Texas. At a career fair at Texas A&M University in College Station, Kara had met the Delos people and instantly decided to work with them. Their eighteen hundred worldwide charities were not only in foreign countries, but also in the U.S.
Hunger and a lack of education were here also, and it was something Kara wanted to change in her own state. They offered her a job, gave her the help and funds to construct the Home School Foundation building in Clayton, plus add an all-important day care center. For Kara it was a match made in heaven. She felt as if she had the best job in the world because it was personally fulfilling to her on every level.
All her life, Kara had tried to ignore her controlling father’s harsh ways and words. Jud Knight was nasty, selfish, arrogant, and worth forty million dollars. His fellow Kenedy County citizens were well aware of his worth and the power of his influence. For that reason, during her four years of high school in Clayton, Kara had felt cursed by her father’s overbearing personality. When he decided she should be homecoming queen during her junior year—voila! She was homecoming queen.
When he wanted her to be a cheerleader, despite her lack of interest in being one—again, she found herself selected, even though she hadn’t even tried out like the other girls. She argued heatedly with her father, telling him she didn’t want it, that it wasn’t fair to the other girls who wanted to be a one. His abrupt answer was, “You’re better than they are. They’re all trailer trash.” Later, in her room, she’d cried in frustration, wanting anonymity, not popularity, because she was a shy introvert by nature. Her father didn’t care.
Outdoors, she heard the sudden pounding of small hailstones on the roof as she continued to clean up the huge day care facility. The last thing she’d do after sweeping and mopping, would be to arrange the desks for tomorrow morning. Everything had to be clean and ready to go for the nine a.m. arrival of the children on Saturday morning. She saw a flash of lightning so close that she winced, closing her eyes.
Suddenly, a man’s hand wrapped around Kara’s mouth, yanking her backwards off her feet. Her arms flailed and pain raced across her jaw where he gripped her. Kara tried to scream, but the man wrapped his other thick, hairy arm around her waist, pinning her against him.
“Shut up, bitch!” he snarled into her ear. His breath smelled of onions, making Kara want to gag. She struggled, kicking out, her arms trapped beneath the man’s powerfully muscled arm. He began jerking her side to side, and she felt as if he were trying to rip her head off her shoulders. Her mind reeled as he continued to drag her backwards, keeping her off balance. She heard him curse at her in Spanish.
“I’ll kill you, bitch. Now, stand still!” He pinched her nose shut with his thumb and forefinger, his hand still across her mouth, effectively shutting off her ability to breathe.
Gurgling in terror, her throat aching with a silent scream, her vision began to dim, and she fought harder, knowing she was going to die. Oh, God! No! No!
Black dots began to dance before her eyes as she began to pass out. Desperately, Kara lifted the heel of her boot, slamming it with all her might into the man’s foot. He howled with pain, letting her go.
Free! She was free! Barely conscious, Kara fell to her knees, then scrambled to get away on all fours. She heard him cursing. Outdoors, another thunderclap shook the air.
Escape! I have to escape!
Air exploded from her mouth as she wobbled to her feet, weaving, her balance off, as she turned toward her attacker. He was a stranger. His brown eyes were dark with fury, his black hair was short and close-cropped, and he was barely taller than she. He appeared to be in his late twenties. He had black tattoos around his thick, bull-like neck and down both his powerful arms. A gold ring hung from his left earlobe. He wore a white muscle shirt, showing off the bulky muscling, scaring her even more. There was no doubt this man lifted very heavy weights at a gym. His jeans were well worn and his combat boots, scuffed. He looked like a soldier to her. She saw a knife in a sheath against his left calf and the pistol he wore in a drop holster around his right thigh. The only thing missing was a set of dog tags around his neck. Instead, he wore a thick gold chain.
Shrieking, Kara tried to dodge his hand as his fist closed, his arm drawn back to strike her. Her mind wasn’t working right, deprived of oxygen, sodden with adrenaline. All she knew was that he was trying to kill her.
Why? Why is this horrible man trying to hurt me?
The moment his fist connected with the left side of her face, Kara heard a snapping sound, as if a huge branch of a tree had been broken inside her head, and everything went black. The last thing she remembered was sailing through the air, her arms wind-milling. And then, nothing.
*
Sheriff’s Deputy Cade Patterson was waiting out the hellacious late afternoon thunderstorm. His cruiser was parked near the outskirts of Clayton as he watched the threatening sky become more and more ominous looking. There were tornado warnings out for the county, so he watched for any forming funnel cloud. Now it was dark, roiling, and ugly, lightning lacing, and turbulent clouds scudding swiftly across the dark sky.
The residents of Clayton, all thirty-five hundred of them, had sought shelter. Cade continued to keep an eye out for activity through his windshield, the wipers whipping back and forth in rhythmic time like a metronome. It was four p.m.—only an hour to go on his eight-hour shift as he sat behind the wheel and watched his white cruiser get its dusty surface blown away by the building winds.
There were two towns located at the east and west ends of Kenedy County. Although he lived in Sarita, the eastern town, his shift change would occur in Clayton, the western town. Then he’d drive twenty miles east down the two-lane highway to his home in Sarita. Having the weekend off was rare, and Cade had plans to rent a boat out at Padre Island and spend the weekend trolling for fish and then freezing his catch.
He dropped his black police Stetson onto the passenger side seat, wanting to get comfortable in his khaki long-sleeved shirt and dark blue trousers as he sat waiting out the storm. Cade put on his black baseball cap, which identified him as a deputy, preferring it to the Stetson if he had to go outside in this kind of weather.
As a kid, he’d liked thunderstorms, enjoying the display of nature’s wild fury, but not any more. He looked out at the gathering storm. In some ways, the explosiveness of the lightning combined with the pounding thunder reminded him of h
is black ops combat deployments in Afghanistan.
His mind flowed back to that time. He’d been in the Marine Corps from ages eighteen to twenty-four and he still considered himself a Marine, even if he was out of the service. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Wiping his shadowed cheeks with his hand, he remembered every mission behind enemy lines. As a covert spotter, he’d guide F-16 Air Force combat jets or A-10 Warthogs to Taliban targets, where they would drop their ordinances on the enemy. He liked being in black ops and he had been damned good at it. It never bothered Cade’s conscience that the Taliban died in those air strikes. They were the enemy—one more group of evildoers that would no longer be alive to injure, kidnap, or kill peaceful Afghan villagers.
Drawing in a deep breath, his thoughts moved farther back in time, though he resisted it. Cade did not want to go back to his childhood here in Clayton. His straight black brows drew downward. In the first eighteen years of his life here in this town near the Mexican border, there had always been one person who’d brightened his life.
Just the memory of Kara Knight’s large blue eyes fringed with long, sable lashes made Cade’s heart fill with yearning. His mouth thinned as he felt those old emotions bubble up to the surface. Why the hell couldn’t he just forget her? She’d been forbidden fruit for someone like him—a young man poor as a church mouse.
His dad, Walt Patterson, had established a plumbing business here in Clayton shortly after Cade was born. Twelve years later, Walt died suddenly of a heart attack. Cade and his mother, Tracy, lost everything: the man they both loved and depended on, the business that had been their only source of income, and finally, their home.
Tracy had been a stay-at-home mom because Walt had made enough money to allow it. But twelve-year-old Cade had no idea at the time how the world of finances worked; now, life would give him an accelerated course in the subject.
The day his father died, Cade’s life changed forever. His anger still sparked deep within him when he remembered Jud Knight, the richest man in the county, dropping by during visiting hours at the funeral home. He had a sneer on his thick, fleshy lips, his green eyes close set together, his narrow face arrogant looking. Cade had never liked Jud. His god was money, not people. Everything was measured by how much money you made and that was it.
Jud Knight had entered the visitor’s room and approached his mother, sitting on a couch alone with Cade’s thin arm around her shoulder.
“Damn, I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Patterson,” he rasped. “Clayton doesn’t have a plumber any more and we’re all in the shitter, if you get my drift.” Then, he spun around and left.
Cade had sat there, staring after the short, lean Texan who had once been a state champion bronco rider. At eighteen, Jud’s father, Gordon Knight, had made his son foreman of the Circle K Ranch. From then on, he became an egotistical rich man who disdained the “trash” of Clayton. He made no apologies for his brutal manner and he spat out “the truth” as he saw it.
Cade’s mother began to cry as Jud stalked off, the white embroidered hanky in her hand pressed to her eyes. And then, less than fifteen minutes later, Pamela Knight, Jud’s wife, entered wearing an elegant black dress with tasteful gold jewelry. Cade’s heart had leaped because her daughter, Kara, was at her side, looking wan and sad. Her soulful blue gaze met his and Cade felt tears jamming into his eyes. Fighting them back, he clung to Kara’s gaze, seeing the shyness in her delicate face.
Her sable hair was in a set of pigtails, small gold ribbons tied down at the end of each one. She too, wore a black dress that hung just below her knees. Kara looked beautiful to Cade. He felt some of the heaviness in his heart lift as her lower lip trembled and she gave him a small, shy smile of hello.
They never spoke to one another at school—they didn’t dare. Cade knew she was off limits to all but the rich boys. But at that moment he could swear that she was silently reaching out to comfort him. That moment was branded forever into his aching heart.
Pamela Knight had come over and gently patted his mother’s shaking shoulder, whispering heartfelt words of comfort to her. Kara had stood nearby, her gaze fastened on the floor, her small hands nervously gripping each other. Cade even remembered the black shoes she’d worn, and the black tights on her spindly legs. Her arms were ghostly against the darkness of the dress she wore and she looked scared. How Cade wanted to comfort her! But his mother needed him, so he stayed put.
He was mesmerized as Kara lifted her tiny, stubborn looking chin and boldly stared straight at him for a moment. They’d gone to grade school together, and now they were both in the seventh grade, but because she was the daughter of Jud Knight, he knew to leave her alone.
Jud had made it clear that the townspeople of Clayton were little more than white and brown trash. This part of Texas was filled with illegal immigrants in the area searching for a better life in America. Half the town was Latino and most of them were undocumented. The other half of the town was struggling white Texans. Knight had an “us against them,” attitude toward the Latinos, and utter disdain for the whites.
Cade had been raised not to see color. To him, every human being “bled red” and everyone had feelings and a heart that could be wounded. His father had taught him early on that everyone deserved respect, regardless of their economic status. Walt had been a Marine, serving his country before settling down to earn his livelihood as a plumber, and Cade was proud of his dad, who was half Comanche and half white. His father had the same skin color as their Latino neighbors on the poor side of their small town. Cade grew up with the same coloring as his father’s, never thinking anything about it until Jud Knight had embarrassed the hell out of him in the feed store when he was nine-years-old.
“Hey, Patterson,” Knight called across the busy store to his father, “what’d you do, take in one of those trashy illegals? Adopt the kid, maybe?”
His father quietly came over and told Knight to take his dirty mouth and get the hell out of the store or he’d do it for him. Cade remembered his head swiveling from one man’s expression to the other and briefly thought he detected fear suddenly leap into Knight’s narrowed eyes. He could feel his father’s rage barely in control, revealed only by his low, growling voice. He knew his father could clean Knight’s clock without a problem. His father was a Marine and Marines always protected those they loved.
Knight left abruptly, stomping out of Garcia’s feed store, leaving a stilted vacuum in his absence. Cade felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, warm and supportive. “Come on son, let’s go get that feed your mother needs for our cow, Bess.”
Nodding jerkily, Cade was glad his father turned, bringing him alongside him, arm around his tiny shoulders, protecting him from the eyes of so many other men in the store, watching as Jud had embarrassed him. He remembered looking down at his skin, that golden hue he’d always considered a beautiful color, especially when sunlight glanced off it. No, he wasn’t white like Jud Knight. What confused Cade was that the man knew that he was Walt Patterson’s son. It was then that he decided Knight was just a mean, evil person. And he’d never changed his mind about him since then. Cade already knew that the rancher called them trash because his father made a living as a plumber.
Wrenching his thoughts back to the present, Cade stared up at the ceiling of his cruiser, listening to the pounding rain that had enveloped Clayton, cleansing it. He surrendered, the memories insisting on flooding through him.
One of his fondest memories happened at his father’s funeral. Half the town came through that evening, paying their final, heartfelt respects to Walt Patterson. Military vets who were now civilians stopped at his open coffin and snapped to attention, saluting him. Others reached out to touch his cold, clasped hands. Some stood there, as if remembering something special about his father, tears in their eyes.
Cade’s heart pounded with so much grief, so much loss. He would never see his father’s wide grin again or hear that deep laughter that always made him smile in return. More than anything, h
is father loved him and his mother with a fierceness that defied words. Cade felt as if his world had been torn in two, never to be the same again.
It was when Kara Knight had shyly moved forward, her hand extended uncertainly toward him, lightly grazing his cheek, holding his startled gaze as he looked up. There were tears in her luminous blue eyes. In that moment, Cade felt as if they had made a magical connection with one another. He physically felt her care for him, her sadness for the loss of his beloved father, and that she wanted to help him in whatever way she could.
Without a word, she stepped forward as Pamela Knight chatted with his mother and wrapped her thin arms around his shoulder, pulling him forward so his head rested against her chin. Kara squeezed him as tightly as she possibly could, whispering, “I’m so sorry, Cade…so sorry. Your father was a great man, not like mine.” And then, she pressed her lips to his forehead in an innocent kiss.
Dragging in a ragged breath, Cade closed his eyes as the rain poured down even harder, the cruiser cloaked in a gray fog so he could see nothing around him. Kara’s warmth, her kindness at that moment, remained with him forever. It was the first and only time he’d been touched by her. His skin where she’d pressed that soft kiss still tingled as he remembered how it felt, and the scent of her sweet honeysuckle fragrance.
Even now, well over a decade later, Cade could still feel the warmth of her arms around him, hauling him tightly against her, feeling as if she were trying to transfer her love to him to protect him from the savage grief tearing through him. It was as if Kara knew how he felt inside, and he could feel her giving herself to him. That stunned him. As nasty and belligerent as her father Jud was, Kara was the complete opposite. He remembered sliding his free arm around her slender waist, holding on to her like a life preserver. She gave him so much in that one moment that to this day, it made his heart yearn for Kara.