Kaillar (Three Brothers Lodge #3) Page 2

  With shaky hands, she turned and walked a short distance away. She pulled the phone from her pocket, and slid her thumb across the screen to answer the call, “Hello?”

  “Becca?”

  “Mom?” Becca asked, her voice going soft with disbelief. Her mother was calling her after all these years. Why?

  “Becca, something horrible has happened.”

  Becca felt her heart crack a little more, the brittle pieces already in ruins. “What?” she whispered, closing her eyes as she willed the bad news away.

  “Your father had a heart attack this morning. He’s gone.”

  Becca heard her mother crying over the phone, and she felt her hand tremble. “What?” she asked incredulously.

  “The funeral is Sunday. I’d like you to be here for the funeral.”

  Becca felt the world start to spin around her, dark spots forming in front of her eyes as she dropped the phone from lifeless fingers to the ground below. She tried to keep the darkness from taking her, but it rushed at her.

  She moaned, and began to come around a few minutes later. Kaillar and Gracie were both peering down into her face, looks of concern on their faces. She looked around and realized that she was in the back seat of the car. She could hear Gracie’s voice coming from the front seat. What’s going on?

  “Becca, you fainted. You’re in the car with me. Who was on the phone?” It was Gracie speaking to her, softly and with compassion for her friend evident in her voice.

  Becca stared straight ahead, “My mom.”

  “Your mom in Hawaii?” Gracie asked.

  Becca nodded, “My dad’s dead. The funeral is Sunday and she wants me there.” She heard her voice, but it really didn’t sound like her. The words she was speaking couldn’t be coming from her mouth, and yet – they were. Her father was dead, and her mother had called…

  Gracie’s wrapped her in a hug, “Oh Becca. I’m so sorry. Honey, what can we do?”

  Becca wasn’t crying. Not yet. “She wants me to come for the funeral. I…”

  “If money is a problem, I can lend you as much as you need.” Gracie was a problem solver, and she’d never met one she couldn’t handle. Especially if the problem belonged to someone else. Gracie wanted everyone around her to be happy with life; it was one of the things that had originally drawn Becca to her. Gracie generally seemed happy, while Becca had been simply existing.

  “No. I can…I just…,” she looked up at Gracie with tears and fear in her eyes. “I can’t go back there like this. Weak. I just can’t. Not by myself. I…”

  Becca felt horrible for even voicing her fears. She wasn’t normally weak, but the recent assault had taken a greater toll on her psyche than even she wanted to admit. She saw Gracie’s silent communication with Kaillar, and then he was speaking directly to her.

  “Becca, darling. Do you want someone to go with you?” Kaillar had squatted down to peer into the vehicle, and she tried to meet his eyes and failed. He deserves so much more than I can give him. But I don’t want him to quit trying. I really don’t.

  Becca’s mind was almost numb, but she heard Kaillar talking to her and it sounded like he was offering her a lifeline. One she desperately needed right then. Do I want someone to go with me? Yes, please! She nodded her head, raising teary eyes to his own and watching them soften with compassion and something else she couldn’t identify.

  He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and held her eyes, “I’ll take you home. Will you let me do that? Will you let me take you home to say goodbye to your dad?”

  Becca shivered once, but she didn’t look away from him. “Yes.”

  “Good. Justin, we need a ride to the airport.” Kaillar didn’t hesitate and Becca sat there numbly, her mind replaying her mother’s words over and over again. He’s gone. Her dad was dead.

  And just like that, Kaillar had stepped in and orchestrated everything. A quick trip by her apartment for clothing and toiletries. A quick shopping trip at a local clothing mall had yielded several outfits along with a small suitcase for Kaillar.

  Then it was off to the airport where they caught a flight before dinnertime was over. Kaillar had stayed right by her side in the terminal, watching her carefully as if he expected her to breakdown any minute.

  Becca purposefully shut her mind off. She thought of Gracie’s last words to her, and she was amazed at the comfort they provided her. Family. Family was more than just who you were biologically related to. Family was whomever you became attached to. People you would do anything for. People who stuck by you in the good times and the bad.

  Family was what she’d found in Colorado. So what was she to do with the family she’d left behind in Hawaii?”

  Chapter 2

  Saturday, Honolulu International Airport, Oahu, Hawaii …

  Becca Edwards watched the approaching tarmac with a sense of sadness so overwhelming that she wasn’t sure if she would survive this trip home. So many memories…

  She’d left the islands a little over four years ago. Four years that seemed like an eternity to her. She’d moved to the mountains of Colorado, figuring they were about as different from the lush tropical landscape of the Hawaiian Islands as she could get. She hadn’t been wrong.

  Mountains were the norm in Colorado, but unlike Hawaii where more often than not they were covered in cooled, or cooling lava, the mountains here were covered in snow for at least six months out of every year. She still remembered the first time she’d watched it snowing outside. The large flakes falling from the sky, so silently and peaceful looking.

  She’d grabbed her camera and captured the moment. The first of many over the last four years. She’d always been interested in photography, and was a hobby writer, so majoring in photojournalism had seemed to be the perfect career choice for her once she landed in Denver. Becoming roommates and friends with Gracie and Melanie had also been perfect.

  She’d been looking for a place to live, close to her classes, and Gracie and Melanie had been looking for a third roommate to help share their home and pay a third of the bills. The trio had hit it off from the very first, and Becca had thanked her lucky stars for meeting the two women who had helped her through one of the toughest times in her life. Even if they hadn’t known what she was going through.

  Everything in her life seemed to have been coming together, so much so that she’d stopped feeling so adrift on the sea of life. She’d seen some pictures taken by the Division of Wildlife personnel, and decided right then and there that was what she wanted to be doing. Getting out into nature and taking photographs that showed the beauty of life all around.

  She’d still missed her family, but she’d not received one phone call from either of her parents since leaving Hawaii. She’d left them a letter, explaining that she couldn’t live in a place surrounded by memories of what might have been, and that she was going somewhere to start over. She’d promised to come home when the time was right, but so far, thoughts of returning to Hawaii left her in a cold sweat. The only concession she’d made was once a year, a week before Christmas Day, she sent a postcard to let them know that she was still alive and not ready to come home yet.

  She hadn’t even chosen the postcard she was going to send this year, and now it seemed that she wouldn’t be following that ritual for a fifth time. She rolled her head from side to side, trying not to let the questions of the past swamp her thinking.

  What if her dad still felt the same way as he had when she’d left? What if her mother still had that look of condemnation in her eyes?

  Either of those would have destroyed her, so she’d stayed away.

  Not even after the assault had she considered calling or going home. She knew that Gracie and Melanie were both worried about her, but when she’d been grabbed in that parking garage, and the men had held her down, one with his hands around her throat, her brain had instantly reverted to the other time that had happened. And the horrible aftermath when her brother had found out w
hat Dagan had done.

  Her attackers had grabbed her from behind, muffling her screams for help. They’d dragged her off to a waiting car, where her nightmares had taken on new meaning. There had been three of them, all Hispanic and all speaking in what she thought sounded like Spanish.

  They’d ripped her clothes, pinching and slapping her body to the point that she had feared for her life. One of them had produced a knife and tormented her by dragging the blade over her exposed body. He’d cared not that he’d broken the skin in several places, seeming to take great joy in the beads of blood left behind on the welts.

  Becca had been sure she was going to die that night. But then, a security car had driven through the parking garage and had spooked her attackers. They’d kicked her to the garage floor and sped off. She’d been found moments later, and transferred by ambulance to the hospital. The nurses in the emergency room had all been very kind, and after treating her physical wounds, and ascertaining that her attackers had been disrupted before they could sexually assault her, they’d called in the resident shrink.

  She’d been leery of trusting him, after her last mental health fiasco, but she’d also known that she needed to release the memories so they could start to fade. She’d told him everything that had happened and that had been said to her. After she’d finished, he’d wanted to know why she hadn’t taken more steps to protect herself. After all, walking through a parking garage, at night, by herself, was practically begging someone to mistreat her.

  His words had been so similar to the last counselor she’d sought out, a few weeks after arriving in Colorado, she’d felt like she was in a time warp.

  Becca had kicked the hospital’s psychologist out of her room and demanded that someone call her roommates to come and get her. When the nurses had asked her what was wrong, she’d refused to say a thing. She was done trusting people with her feelings and emotions.

  Gracie had arrived fifteen minutes later, horrified that Becca had gone through such a trying ordeal and her roommates were just hearing about it. Becca hadn’t told Gracie about the counselor, afraid she would say too much and leave an opening for her friends to start asking questions about the past as well.

  It had been six months since her attack, and she still felt jumpy and nervous in dark places. Physically, she’d had some bruises and cuts, but mentally, it was as if her brain had been fire-stormed. Night terrors were just one of the ways her brain had chosen to deal with her attack. Panic attacks and an aversion to being touched were others.

  Gracie seemed to think that she was suffering from a sort of PTDS, but Becca was adamantly against any kind of counseling. She’d tried that briefly after arriving in Colorado. The college medical center had a mental health doctor, and she’d gone to him exactly twice. The first time had been more of a meet and greet session.

  But during the second session, the counselor had told her that she’d set herself up to be attacked by Dagan. He’d insinuated that she’d basically asked for what had happened and everything that had followed was in part her responsibility. He’d affirmed her guilt over her brother’s death, reminding her that she was the one who made the decision to take off with her boyfriend. Her brother had paid for her lack of judgment.

  She’d never gone back to another session, believing she could heap guilt on her own shoulders and didn’t need to pay someone hundreds of dollars to help. Becca had slammed out of his office, recommending he find another vocation because his ability to listen without passing judgment was deplorable.

  Coupled with her experience in the emergency room, Becca had no use for the entire counseling profession. Except for Gracie.

  Gracie was a medical doctor, but she seemed to know more about how Becca’s brain processed things than even Becca herself did. Without Gracie, she wasn’t sure how she would have survived the last six months.

  And yet, here she was heading to Hawaii without her. Gracie couldn’t travel because of her knee surgery, so Kaillar had stepped in to provide the companionship and support she needed. For the first time in years, Becca could honestly say that she was glad to have a man’s shoulder to lean upon.

  Chapter 3

  The plane’s wheels touched down, and she felt her companion stir in the seat next to her. Kaillar Donnelly.

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, watching as his lashes fluttered several times before opening and revealing his deep blue eyes beneath a mop of unruly dark blonde hair. He’d fallen asleep somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, and Becca had spent many long moments watching him sleep.

  He was the middle brother of the three Donnelly men, and had offered to escort her home to say goodbye to her father. She’d tried to figure out why all of a sudden he had seemed to be safe to her, when only days earlier he’d sent tendrils of fear rushing through her body because he had stood too close to her.

  Those feelings seemed to have vaporized and as he’d slept, she’d wanted nothing more than to lay her head on his shoulder and seek the same refuge in slumber. But Becca’s dreams were more often than not unpleasant; and the fear that she would have a nightmare while trapped in this seat and on the plane had kept her awake the entire trip. A feat that even now was taking a great toll on her ability to function correctly.

  Becca had never been the type of person who functioned well on just a few hours of sleep. She always felt as if she was wading through muddy waters, and that everyone was moving in slow motion around her the next day. She mentally groaned as she realized that by not sleeping, she’d possibly made a truly horrible day almost impossible to take. I should have tried to get at least a few hours of sleep.

  But it was too late now. The flight was over. They’d flown from Denver to San Francisco and then taken a late flight off the mainland. It was now almost 10 a.m. on Saturday morning in Hawaii, but with the time difference, that meant Becca had been awake for almost thirty-two hours.

  She looked back out the window, and called up the image of Kaillar she’d created in the wee hours of the morning. Yawning, she closed her eyes, and envisioned a beach with waves crashing off the shore as men and women tested their abilities against Mother Nature. It wasn’t hard to imagine her companion in that setting. Coming across the sand in knee-length board shorts, his shoulders tan from many hours in the sun, the muscles rippling as he carried a surfboard on his shoulder. He’d use his free hand to sluice his too-long hair back and then stand the board up in the sand before walking towards her…

  She’d participated in just such a scene many times, just with a different lead actor. The last time, the actor had been her beloved brother. She remembered the smile on his face dying as he got his first glimpse of her, and the angry way he’d grabbed his board and headed back to the ocean. It would be his last ride, and for that, she would never forgive herself.

  The plane stopped moving as it docked at the terminal gate and Becca sighed. Most people came to Hawaii to vacation. But she and Kaillar weren’t in Hawaii to play on the beach. In fact, she wasn’t sure she wanted to play with the handsome man his friends referred to as Kai at all.

  She’d first met him when she and her two friends had tried to climb Maroon Peak on the cusp of a major winter storm. Becca hadn’t known the danger they were in, but she’d soon found out. The wind and snow had come upon them so quickly even now she found it miraculous that Gracie had been the only one hurt on their descent.

  Kaillar and his brother Mason had come up the mountain to rescue them. Mason had gone after Gracie, and Kaillar had escorted her and Melanie to the small town of Silver Springs. Everything had been going fine until she’d slipped and Kaillar had reacted and caught her.

  Even now, she felt horrible for how she had reacted. Gracie seemed to think she needed counseling to get past the attack that had happened not so long ago, but Becca felt sure she could conquer her own demons – she’d done so once before.

  She’d never been one to confide in others, and most especially not matters of a personal
nature. Is that why you never sought any help with reconciling with your dad? It’s too late now. Just like it was too late to save Kevin…

  Becca forced her thoughts away from that dark abyss, not willing to allow the past to torture her at this moment in time. The present was doing enough of that all on its own!

  “Hey! We’re here.” Kaillar leaned towards her, craning his head to get a glimpse out the plane’s small window.

  “Very observant,” came her flippant reply before she could stop it. She blushed and covered her mouth before sighing, “Sorry. Coming home…”

  Kaillar sat back, pulled her hand away, and folded his long fingers around it, ignoring her small tug of protest. “I know this must be really hard for you. Gracie mentioned you hadn’t been home in over four years?”

  Becca looked at him, seeing the questions in his eyes, and then turned her head towards the window. “Yeah. Four years.” She thought about leaving it there, but then she didn’t want him assuming that she and her family were all nice and cozy. Once upon a time…

  “Look, you should probably know that I’ve not even spoken to my family since I left Hawaii. Things were… difficult… when I left. My father…well, let’s just say that not having to see me each day as a reminder of what he’d lost was a blessing.”

  “To him?”

  She nodded, “Yeah. To him.”

  “And what about you? Was it a blessing being separated from your family for so many years?”

  Becca looked at him and then shook her head once, “Yes, and no. But I’m not going to discuss that right now. I can’t. I just wanted you to know that things may be a little tense when we reach my home.”

  He nodded once, and then pushed his arms forward as he stretched; an action that drew her eyes to the tight t-shirt he wore and how well it molded to his muscles. Realizing her brain was once again heading down a path that was only vaguely familiar to her, she forced herself to look away as she slowly gathered up her belongings from the seat in front of her.