by Anita DeVito
The first blow crushed him, slamming his body into a curved slab of marble with a crunch. Brutal open-handed slaps drove him away from her.
She had to get to her feet. Pain shot through her body, robbing her breath, denying her her full height. She staggered forward, her arms wrapped around her ribs. “Jeb! Stop. Jeb, you’re killing him.” Her lungs protested each breath, but she ignored it. Each jarring step inflicted agony on her beaten system. “Jeb. Jebediah. Stop. It’s over.” She put a gentle hand on his back. Jeb’s head swept around with a hiss but Carolina kept her hand in place and spoke with absolute love. “You did it, Jeb. You saved me.”
The answering snarl was more animal than man. “I could kill him for what he did to you.”
She barely recognized the voice as Jeb’s. “I know you could, but that’s not the man you are.”
He tossed Hooker like a bag of garbage. “That’s exactly the man I am.”
“I think I know you better than you know yourself.” She wrapped her hand around his thick wrist, rubbing her thumb over his pulse. “You’re a protector, Jeb. Not a killer.”
“Gun!”
At the sound of Beck’s voice, Jeb took Carolina to the ground. She screamed as her battered body crashed to the earth, shards of pain blinding her to the world around her. Two sharp cracks rang out. Jeb shouted hoarsely with the first, and then his body went rigid over her.
“Jeb. He’s done.” Beck squatted down and helped Jeb roll off her. “The bastard’s done.”
She lay still, breathing slowly until the stinging subsided. Only then did she sit up gingerly, pushing through sharp hurt that pinned her down.
Jeb stood over Hooker’s sprawled body, and he heaved a great sigh of relief. He limped the few feet to her, offering one hand while his other gripped his thigh. “It’s over. We beat them, Carolina.”
She accepted his hands, coming to her feet and looking into his eyes. They were turned down in defeat. They hadn’t beaten the monsters yet, and they were running out of time.
Chapter Seventeen
Jeb hobbled into his office, praying no one saw him. The house was full again. After hearing he had been shot, Butch and Katie had rushed home. Tom, too. The three of them hovered like vultures over a fresh kill.
Okay, that wasn’t fair but he couldn’t help it. He felt mean. He’d lost every emotion except anger since he’d been released from the hospital. It didn’t help that every time the door opened, every time one of them walked in, Jeb bled a little more, waiting for the words.
Carolina is gone.
Katie told him, unsolicited of course, that Carolina was still in Tom’s guest bedroom, as the doctor hadn’t cleared her to fly. Katie took care of Carolina while Butch spent too much time taking care of him. Well, Jeb had had it. Convalescence was a four-letter word and one that he was done with. Two days was two too many.
He held his breath as he eased himself down the steps, hoping his keepers had better things to do. If they tried to keep him locked up for another day, he’d…well…he’d… He let it go, reaching the landing and moving determinedly into his office.
White-knuckled hands dug into the arms of his leather chair as he lowered himself down with a long, heavy sigh. “Oh, now that’s what I’m talking about.” He ran his hands over the salvaged desk he loved so much. “Did you miss me?”
The quick rap on the doorframe came as he sorted his mail. “Come in.”
Beck’s stoic face appeared in the doorway. “I saw your door open. I thought the doc said you were supposed to rest the leg.”
“I am.” He pulled out the lowest desk drawer and, using both hands, lifted his injured leg onto the resting spot. “Talked with Finch this morning. Miller broke the land-scheme story. The governor threw Kennedy under the bus.”
“Shocking,” Beck said, sinking into the visitor’s chair.
“Exactly. Kennedy called Finch and returned the favor. He dumped enough dirt to bury his presidential hopes at the dark end of a deep hole, as Katie would say.”
Beck leaned forward, those glacial eyes bearing down on him. “What are you going to do with the information?”
“Turn it over to Carolina. This is her field of expertise and God knows she earned a little payback.”
Beck nodded. “That should keep her out of trouble for a while.”
“Something’s nagging me. When we were in that church balcony, that asshole we were fighting said something about speaking English. What did he mean?”
Beck shrugged. “Maybe I hit him too hard and he was hearing in tongues.”
Jeb snorted. “I’ve heard of speaking in tongues, not hearing. So, are you antsy sitting around here?”
“You’re the boss.”
“That’s right, I am.” He winged a large manila envelope across the desk. “Your new assignment. It’s about time you got off your ass and did something useful.”
Beck opened the envelope and pulled out a glossy eight-by-ten of a beautiful woman with dark, wild hair and haunting green eyes. He touched the delicate face, mesmerized.
“Don’t get too dreamy-eyed. Someone’s out to get her and doesn’t mind going through her bodyguards. You’re number five.”
Beck scowled at him and shoved the picture back into place. “When do I leave?”
“You’re expected first thing Monday morning but don’t think that means you’re going to be welcome. We’re being hired by her employer, not her.”
Beck nodded. “No problem.”
“Beck, call if you need support. I’m serious. My gut says this one is harder than it looks.”
Beck nodded again.
Jeb let his head fall back. “Is she still here?”
“Yes. She’s nursing the cracked ribs. I think she’s waiting for you.”
He ignored the comment. “I’ll arrange for her flight, send her on her way to a new life.”
“You know best. I’ll get to work.” Beck walked behind the desk and offered Jeb his hand.
Jeb took it and squeezed, trying to find the words for what he wanted to say.
“Thank you is enough,” Beck said.
“It isn’t, but it’s all I got. Thank you.”
With a final nod, Beck silently left the office. Jeb booted up his computer and sifted through the emails, reading the correspondence between Mitchell and Nate Walker. Hooker’s mother overdosed on sleeping pills the night Terry Lee died. The single mother had raised the two boys after their father killed himself in a single car crash. His blood alcohol content was five times the legal limit. Jeb shook his head. “Some stories just don’t have a happy ending.” He would share the details on the land scandal with Nate when they talked. That wasn’t the kind of information he wanted in writing.
“Jeb,” Katie called over the intercom on his phone. “You have company. I put them in the family room.”
“Who?” He snapped the question, not in the mood for company.
“Go see,” she said, batting the attitude right back at him.
“I’m not supposed to be on my leg yet.”
“You managed to get to your office.” She sighed as if making a great concession. “You want me to bring them to you or you want to come here?”
Damn, he shouldn’t have answered the intercom. “Neither.”
“Not an option. Pick a place.”
“Fine. I’m coming, but if these stitches tear it’ll be your fault.” He fought his way out of the chair and shuffled out of his wing, through the main building to the family room. With each step, he stood a little taller. Moving, as painful as it was, felt good.
He walked across the new foyer, which was the old living room, through the French doors and into the room that truly was the family room. A couple, somewhere in their fifties, sat at the poker table. They were dressed simply but neatly. He in a white button-down shirt, she in a blouse that swirled with pastels. The man stood and smiled as Jeb entered.
That smile. He knew that smile. But it was impossible. He staggered until his back
hit the bar. “Who are you?”
“Ethel and Henry Campbell. You look exactly like Adam’s picture.” Mr. Campbell had covered the distance, took Jeb’s hand, and pumped it for water. The son had been the spitting image of the father, especially the smile. “I feel like we know you, don’t we, Ettie?”
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Campbell smiled sweetly as she stood but stayed at the table, hands clasped together. “I hope you don’t mind us stopping by unannounced. After talking to Miss Walker, well, we had to see you.”
Shock slowed his synapsis down. He forced air into his body, hoping the oxygen would get to his depleted brain. “Miss Walker? She called you?”
Mr. Campbell considered and then shrugged. “Oh, well, I expect she had to, to write that article of hers. She’s going to get the Washington Post to publish it. Isn’t that something? Show him the story, dear.”
“Oh, of course.” Mrs. Campbell set her deep pink bag on the green felt of the poker table and pulled out a handful of well-read pages. “Excuse the wrinkles. I think I must have read this a hundred times.”
Jeb gestured to the couch and waited until they sat before he lowered himself into the leather armchair that was his favorite. His hand trembled as he looked at the headline. Live Fiercely. The Remarkable Life of Adam Campbell. By Carolina Walker.
He closed burning eyes. His heart beat so hard, he could feel it in his toes. It grew so big, it certainly couldn’t fit in his chest.
“Don’t you just love the title? ‘Live Fiercely.’ She captured Adam, didn’t she, chief?” Mrs. Campbell blushed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t call you that. It’s just, I, we, feel like we know you. All of Adam’s stories and letters, we just feel like we know you.”
Memories flooded him. Stories and pictures that he’d long put away demanded their place in history. Each one had been created in joy but had long been tainted by remorse. He felt his head nod, though he didn’t remember nodding. Words leaked from his mouth. “Jeb. My name is Jeb.”
“I hope you won’t think poorly of us, waiting so long to call on you,” Mr. Campbell said. “We were headed down to pick up our youngest from college and used it as an excuse to finally stop by to say thank you.” He held out his hand.
Guilt reared up, claws raking his psyche. “You have nothing to thank me for. If anything, I stole from you.”
The couple looked at each other. Mr. Campbell answered. “Stole? What did you steal from us?”
He erupted from the chair, closing in on the couple, his hands moving with energy his body couldn’t contain. “Your son! I stole your son from you! How can you not see that?”
“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Campbell leaned closer to her husband.
Mr. Campbell stood calmly in the midst of the outburst. “How did you steal him?”
“How?” The word strangled him. “I sent him out on the patrol that ended his life. That’s how.”
Mr. Campbell put his arm around his wife but remained focused on Jeb with the quiet calm of acceptance. “Wasn’t it his job to go on patrol? Wasn’t he part of a team of other men who went out?”
He pointed his finger at Campbell, wanting to be rude in the face of all that calm. “That’s not the point.”
Mrs. Campbell wrapped her small hand around his finger. “We’ve talked to others. We know that Adam disobeyed orders. He would have for a child. You could have told him a thousand times, threatened him, and he would have always chosen the child.”
Guilt swept anew. His head fell, tears filled his eyes and raced over his cheeks. “I should have…”
Mrs. Campbell tugged on his hand until he lifted his chin. “I loved my son but I knew him. If it wouldn’t have been that day, it would have been another.”
“I…I can’t let go.” He wrapped his hands around Mrs. Campbell’s. “He was a good man. If I would have… I don’t know.”
“Look at me,” she said in a voice every mother had. “If you really knew my son, really knew the man he was, then you know he would not want this from you. Yes, he was a good man, and he wanted the respect of a good man. You. He worked hard to earn your respect, not your pity, not your guilt.”
Jeb understood respect and what it took to earn it. He understood refusing to be the one others pitied. She was right, Campbell would never have accepted pity or guilt from him. He would have used that smart-ass mouth of his to throw it right back in his face. “I did respect him and liked him.” Hate and anger dissipated like a heavy fog in the light of the much stronger sun. In their place, peace filled him. “Your son was cocky, confident in life. He reminded me of my brother.”
“He surprised us with joining the military,” Mr. Campbell said. “In college, he’d worked with troubled teens. We were certain he was going to be a teacher or a social worker, but he felt called to serve our country. Whenever he came home, he went to the rec center and spent time with those kids. He called them, even from overseas. None of them has dropped out of high school. Not one.”
Mrs. Campbell withdrew smoothly. Everything about this woman was gentle. He couldn’t imagine her harming a spider. “He would love what we are doing with the money.”
“Money?” Jeb echoed.
“We’re starting a foundation.” Mr. Campbell puffed up his chest. “Live Fiercely.”
“Is that where the headline came from?”
“Vice versa,” Mr. Campbell said.
“Miss Walker is helping us start it.” Mrs. Campbell’s eyes twinkled. “She guaranteed us a quarter of a million dollars to start and advice on how to invest and leverage and turn it into really big money.”
Jeb fell back into the chair, his head spinning. Carolina helped them start a foundation in Campbell’s name. “What will the foundation do?”
“Well, help kids live fiercely. Ettie and I figure we’ll start with seeing that Adam’s kids can afford college.”
“We’d like to help kids everywhere,” Mrs. Campbell said. “Like the ones Adam stopped to give candy to. We aren’t sure how we’re going to do it yet, but we’ll figure it out.” She wove her fingers with her husband’s, wearing an expression of quiet confidence.
Butch came into the room, a tablet in his hand. “Jeb, do you— Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we had company. Afternoon. I’m Butch.”
Mrs. Campbell’s eyes grew wide. “You’re Butch…” She turned to Jeb. “He’s Butch McCormick. Have you ever heard him play? He’s good.”
Jeb laughed then, full and loud, pulling Butch into the room. “I have heard him a time or two. Please, sit down. I’d like to hear more about the foundation. Can I get you something to drink?”
…
“They really came?” Carolina rolled off the bed she still occupied in Tom’s wing, pressing a hand to the mattress as her still-tender ribs strongly objected to the quick movement.
Katie ran to her side. “Slow down. They aren’t going anywhere. Butch is down there with orders to keep them here.”
“What’s he going to do?” Moving at a more reasonable pace, she put her feet into the slippers she’d taken to wearing in the house.
Katie waved her hand dismissively. “Stop traffic, like he always does.”
“Who does?” Tom asked from the doorway.
“Butch.”
Katie nudged her way past Tom with Carolina walking gingerly behind her. “The family Carolina talked to is here. The Campbells.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Carolina, it’ll be faster if I carry you.”
She glared as she continued her slow but steady progress. “You are not carrying me, Thomas. I am done being bossed around.”
Tom shoved his hands into his pockets. “I wasn’t bullying, I was offering to carry. I was being expeditious.”
She managed well enough on flat surfaces but stairs were another matter. Twelve steps to the bottom where Katie and Tom waited patiently. Carolina put most of her weight on the banister, shifting her hips and sliding more than stepping. One. Her breath was coming harder, faster. Two.
This
was silly. And it hurt. “Tom?”
“Yeah?”
“I would appreciate it if you could…expedite this process.”
Tom ran up the stairs. She expected him to tease or taunt. When he didn’t, she felt oddly self-conscious. He would have teased anyone else.
Tom held her like she was made of glass, lifting her while taking care not to jostle. Were they treating her like a guest now? If they were, it was something else she’d given up without ever realizing what she had.
“Thank you,” she said when her feet were back on the ground.
“You know, I’m obligated by the rules of manhood to say ‘I told you so.’ However, seeing how you came to the right conclusion on your own after covering those two steps in two minutes, I’ll let you slide.”
The joy of acceptance, the warmth of inclusion, bubbled up as a giggle. She cupped Tom’s face and kissed his cheek. “You’re perfect. You know that?”
A shadow fell across those chocolate brown eyes, something dark that drained the laughter she embraced. And then, in an instant, the Tom she knew and, yes, loved, was back.
“That’s not a secret. I have it in bold on my business cards.”
Katie guffawed. “Carolina, we installed only a double door on the new office. Don’t make his head any bigger.”
“Do you think this will work?” Tom asked as they trekked across the courtyard.
“It has to,” Carolina said. “But if it doesn’t, I’m not giving up. I may not be able to be with Jeb but I will not let him run himself to death.” She took the lead then, pushing open the doors. Standing at the bar, a drink in his hand, Jeb had a look of rapture on his face as he listened to the story told by the woman who had to be Ettie Campbell.
The full attention of the room shifted to Carolina but she saw only Jeb. She watched his eyes widen and his fist press to his heart. He struggled with emotions that tightened his mouth. He turned away.
“No.” She whispered the plea as she ran to him, ready to beg him to listen to the Campbells. “Jeb.”
To her surprise, his arms banded around her, nearly lifting her off the ground. Her body protested, but her heart sang for joy. She dug her fingers into his waist, holding him, loving him.