Caleb’s Salvation Read online

  Except Jackson looked like someone had stomped on his soul with some big-ass boots.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked Eli, jerking my chin in Jackson’s direction.

  “Kate’s in Nome,” Eli said. “Been there for weeks, apparently, working as a local cop.”

  “Are you shitting me?” I whistled. She’d come back for him. That sure as hell meant those five days together in the woods were just as important to her as I knew they were to Jackson. The guy was clearly lovesick. At least now he had to know she felt the same way. “Then what the fuck are you doing here?”

  “My business.”

  I snorted in disgust. Jackson could be so damn stubborn, but the truth was I didn’t have it in me to give him a don’t-screw-up-your-life speech.

  “You know what? You’re right. I don’t care. I’ll just say this. I’ve known you for three years, Jackson. I saw you in a bar with Kate for ten minutes before she was taking you home. That, my friend, was the only time I ever saw you truly happy. But you do what you want. I got my own damn problems. Oh yeah, that’s right. I forgot. I’m not talking to any of you.”

  I took my beer and went to sit at a table alone.

  I forgot to tell Eli about Vivienne needing wood. Shit.

  Oh well. I would do it myself. This time.

  3

  The next day

  Vivienne

  “Where is he?” Caleb asked, as I came outside with a thermos of coffee for him.

  He meant Sam. Because Caleb didn’t want to actually use my baby’s name. I wondered why that was. Maybe he didn’t like kids, but it’s not as if you couldn’t like Sam. He was a wonderful baby. Caleb just needed to spend more time with him and he would see that.

  “Sleeping,” I told him.

  I offered him the thermos. “I hope you take it black because I’m running low on sugar.”

  He eyed it warily like it was a trap of some kind.

  “You’re doing a nice thing for me, so I brought you coffee. That’s all, I promise,” I said.

  He pointed toward the side of the cabin to a stump with a smaller axe leaning against it. “I brought you something you can handle. You need to be able to chop wood.”

  I looked at the axe skeptically. I walked over and picked it up. It was considerably lighter than what Caleb was wielding, but I thought it might take forever to get through a tree. “You really think I can cut down a tree with this?”

  He looked me up and down. “No. You’re not cutting down any trees. You just need to split logs.”

  “Oh, I get it. You’re going to cut down that tree over there then all I have to do is chop it up into smaller pieces. I think I can do that.”

  He shook his head looking exacerbated.

  “Vivienne—”

  “Hey, you do know my name!” I teased him.

  “Go home. Go back. Go…somewhere besides here.”

  I don’t know why, because he made it clear all the time that he wanted me gone. But this time it hurt a little more. Maybe because I at least thought we were becoming friends.

  “Why can’t you accept that I’m committed to staying?”

  “Because you don’t know that I’m going to cut down that tree and split it into rounds. Then I’m going to stack it, cover it and sometime next fall after it’s had a chance to dry out, then and only then will that wood burn.”

  I felt as stupid as he intended. I crossed my arms over my chest. “I come from Plainview, Texas. We don’t have a need to make a lot of fires.”

  “Exactly. Which is why you don’t belong up here. Up here everything is a challenge.”

  I shook my head. “For weeks you’ve been barking at me to go home because it’s for my own good even though I told you there is nothing to go back to. Only I don’t believe you. Here, I have Jenny, Eve and Zeke, Eli and Shelby. Even you, despite the fact that you’re cranky with me all the time. So what is it? What’s your real reason for wanting me to leave?”

  He scowled and I thought about how those scowls no longer intimidated me at all. Like it was his natural expression when it came to me. Almost comforting.

  “Why don’t you have anything to go back to? Where is your family?”

  “You don’t want to tell me the truth, but I’m supposed to spill all?” I said. “Fine. You want my sad story? My mom left us when I was nine. Pop was a church pastor who really only knew one thing, which was preaching. I grew up homeschooled with not much more than a bible and no friends. My life was serving Pop and the congregation for six hours on Sunday.”

  I waited for some kind of reaction, but there wasn’t much. Like he didn’t want to be moved by anything I said.

  He looked at his feet. “I’m sorry about your mother. She never came back?”

  “No. I tried to understand. I mean, if he was as restrictive with her as he was with me, it would have been hard for her. My mom was a free spirit, I think. One he tried to capture.”

  “You forgive her for her leaving you?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t say forgive. I said understand. I could never forgive her after being a mom to Sam, knowing how I feel about him. Only death would separate us. So I’m thinking she didn’t love me as much as she needed to like a proper mother.”

  His brow got heavy then. “Did he abuse you?”

  “Physically? No, but Pop was a big believer in hell and an unmade bed was enough to put me on the path to it. Sometimes it was hard…to keep my head on straight. To understand what he preached wasn’t about love or kindness, but always about sin and wrongdoing. If I didn’t have the library, books, my only window to the outside world, I don’t know who I might have been.”

  “And Sam?”

  Right. The pathetic part of the story. “Pop didn’t let me work until I was twenty-one. I think he thought he had total control over me by then, but the whole time I was just waiting...waiting for a chance. I worked at the lone diner in town. Searching for someone who would help me get out. Away from my father, my town, my life.”

  He raised his eyebrow. The right one.

  “Yeah,” I said, knowing what he was implying with that impervious eyebrow. “I know now it was a bad idea. Thinking someone would save me like I was Cinderella or some kind of princess. Dave was a trucker who came into the diner. Had a regular route that took him through town. He’d stop every Tuesday, order the cherry pie. First time I ever flirted with a man. First time I ever had a man treat me like a woman. Guess you could say I was ripe for the picking.”

  “Did he know? That you were a virgin?”

  I sighed. It wasn’t rocket science Caleb assumed as much, realizing how sheltered I’d been. It was the truth. “He knew after he took it. I thought…I thought we would get married. He wasn’t offering that, but he still kept coming back. Until I found out I was pregnant. Then he stopped coming altogether. I was so scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen when Pop found out. Like I said, he’d never been physically violent before, but once he knew what I was doing in the back of that rig…”

  “You didn’t consider a different option.”

  I shook my head. “Never once. Guess I had enough churching to believe that life, no matter the circumstances, is precious. Besides, you don’t want to know what a woman has to do to get an abortion in the Panhandle of Texas. It’s not like it is in other places. No clinics nearby, no doctors willing to do it for fear of losing their licenses. The best you’re going to do is some Mexican lady across the border who’s got magic tea that might kill you instead. No, I decided I wanted to love someone. And I thought, as a mamma, I would finally know what it meant to be loved. The real kind. And I do. Sam is everything.”

  Caleb kicked his boot into the ground. “What happened when you told your father?”

  “It was strange. He was mad. He was disappointed, sure. He called me a slut and a sinner. I expected all that. But he told me I could still live with him. I thought maybe a baby would warm his heart a little. That he’d see something outside of his ser
mons…”

  Sam was his grandson. A part of him through me. I still didn’t understand why Pop couldn’t accept that.

  I swallowed. “Sammy was three months old when he told us he’d done his service by us and it was time for me to take my sinful child and leave his home.”

  I heard Caleb swear under his breath. Because it had been a bad thing to do. I had no skills, no schooling other than Bible teaching. I could serve coffee and pie and eggs to hungry customers and that was about it. Pop knew that. Knew what he was sentencing me to. A man who could do that had no love in his heart I’d decided.

  “Sam was so little I could leave him in the carrier underneath the counter at the diner while I worked. Found a room at a motel I could afford, but it wasn’t right. Having a baby in that place.” I pushed down the tears those memories brought. How hopeless I felt. How powerless to change my son’s circumstances. “Then one day the owner came in and saw me rocking Sam while I was pouring coffee, and fired me. As if having a baby on a shoulder was some kind of crime. Couldn’t get work, couldn’t afford a sitter if I could get work. I ended up…”

  “Homeless,” Caleb finished.

  There it was. That terrible word again. “In a women’s shelter, with my baby. Except the air conditioning hardly ever worked and the heat in Plainview in the summer is unlike any heat you’ve ever felt I’m sure. I would leave for most of the day and go to the library. It was always cool and quiet and no one bothered us for the most part unless Sam acted up. Which he hardly ever does, he’s such a good baby. I was on the computer trying to think of someone who might help me and there you were. Free tickets to Alaska. All expenses paid. You were my salvation.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face then. “Vivienne, I’m not your solution.”

  I nodded. “I know. But you’ve been so nice. I mean, grumpy and telling me to leave all the time, but you brought the food. Now you’re helping with the wood even though I can’t use it until next fall. Have to admit that’s not going to be super helpful this winter.”

  I thought about those options again. They were there. Zeke, I’m sure would have extra wood because if anyone looked like he could make more wood available, it was Zeke.

  “I brought a cord of dry wood. It’s in my truck. I’ll unload it, show you how to split it and stack it, and how to keep it dry with a tarp.”

  “See? You are nice to me. Even if you don’t want to be.” I walked toward him so that I was close. Close enough to smell pine on him. Close enough to see some flecks of gray in his beard. Close enough to realize how much larger he was than me, but he didn’t make me feel scared at all.

  In fact, being this close to him, seeing his breath come out in puffs of air, he made me feel…tingly.

  Which was crazy. When I’d decided to take the tickets, I hadn’t expected to come to Alaska and be turned on. I suppose I was hoping to maybe strike a deal with a lonely widower. Someone who needed softness in his life. What had Caleb said about survival up here? That it was all transactional.

  This didn’t feel like that. This felt like my nipples were hard and my breasts were aching, but not because Sam needed to be fed. All this time, I considered Caleb a person in my life because the contest connected us in some way. But this was the first time I saw him not as someone who could help me, but as just a man. A large, handsome, attractive man.

  “Don’t,” he said, taking a step back, even as I took a step closer. Did he see it on my face? Did he know that my heart was suddenly pounding in my chest?

  “Don’t what?” I pressed, moving closer. Close enough to touch him. I put my hands on his chest, his big, wide, strong chest. Even through his wool-lined coat I could feel his heart thumping, too. “I know you said you don’t like freckles, but maybe mine are growing on you?”

  I lifted myself on my toes, wanting to see if I could reach his mouth. He was going to have to bend to kiss me and for a second…the smallest briefest second…I felt him give a little.

  Then he sidestepped me, and I stumbled forward until I finally caught myself. My hands flew to my cheeks to hide how red they were. Shame from his rejection, or desire. I wasn’t sure.

  “I told you I’m not your solution. Don’t think you can manipulate me like that.”

  Of course he would think that. That I was seducing him for an ulterior motive. Why wouldn’t he, after the story I just told him? Except it wasn’t true. I hadn’t been thinking about anything. Except him.

  “I wasn’t… I wouldn’t…” I couldn’t think of a word that would explain how I felt.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” he said curtly, walking away from me, leaving the thermos on the stump with the axe he’d brought me. “Sorry about Sam’s father, too. But I’m not someone who can help you.”

  I didn’t want him to help me just then. I wanted… Well, I suppose I just wanted him.

  I was sure he’d felt something, too. In that brief second.

  “Are you going to tell me the real reason you want me to leave so badly?”

  “Because you’re looking for some prince and that’s not me. I’ll send someone later to unload the wood.”

  He was running. He was literally running away from me.

  Was it possible that big, bad Caleb was scared? Of me?

  * * *

  Dyson Camp

  Cal

  “Rodgers,” I called out to one of the young roustabouts on Eli’s team who was hanging out in the rec room.

  He was watching a college football game with a bunch of the other guys, but he didn’t hesitate to jump up.

  “What’s up, Cal?” he asked, coming toward me, but I didn’t want to have this conversation among the guys.

  “Follow me to my room, will you?”

  Again, he didn’t hesitate. It’s why I picked Ty. Young, earnest. He’d been here for a year. A solid worker, Ty didn’t cause problems. No fighting, no excessive drinking and he did everything anybody asked.

  I opened the door to my room and closed it behind him.

  “Okay, you’re making me nervous, Cal. Am I in trouble?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing like that. I need a favor. You hear about the new contest lady in town?”

  “Your girl with the baby?”

  I grimaced. “She’s not my girl. Truth is she’s got a little crush on me and well, I just don’t feel the same way.”

  “Oh. But she’s cute as heck. I saw her at Gert’s one day when I was picking up supplies.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not into redheads.” I hadn’t been into any woman since Sarah. Those were my rules and I sure as hell wasn’t changing them for a young woman with a baby.

  Didn’t matter if she was cute as heck or not. Didn’t matter that, after knowing her story, I thought she was pretty damn brave, too.

  “Anyway,” I continued. “She plans on staying up here but she’s not real familiar with how hard winter is. I need someone to watch over her. Make sure she’s stocked up with wood, that she knows when to clean out the potbelly stove. I need someone who I can trust won’t take advantage of the situation.”

  “Take advantage?” Ty asked, his voice creeping up an octave. “You mean of a lady? Uh, my mom taught me better than that, sir.”

  Perfect. “You’re from Anchorage?”

  “Born and bred, sir.”

  “You know the drill up here when it gets dark?”

  “Yes, sir. I can make sure she has everything she needs to get through it.”

  He would do it. I could trust him. “She’s been through a hard time. I want to make sure things go as easy as they can for her, but I don’t want the other guys thinking they can pester her. You know what I mean? I might not want to date her, but that doesn’t mean she needs to deal with every single guy in camp hitting on her. You understand me?”

  “Right. Keep the guys away.”

  “Maybe they see you two together, they’ll just assume she’s off limits.”

  The kid laughed at that. “You give me a lot of credit, si
r. I only got a peek at her, but I’m pretty sure she’s out of my league.”

  “All that stuff is horseshit. You can be in any woman’s league if you’re man enough. Trust me, when I was going after Sarah, she thought she was way too good for me at first…”

  I could see it in the kid’s face. The awkwardness or maybe surprise of me actually mentioning Sarah’s name. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d said it out loud. Well, I did it. I said her name. She was gone, but it didn’t mean I had to pretend she’d never existed.

  “Anyway, you’ll do this for me?” I asked him.

  “Sure, sir. No problem. That it?”

  I nodded and watched him walk to the door. I didn’t want to do it, but in the end, I couldn’t stop myself.

  “And Rodgers, you’ll keep me appraised of how she’s doing. I feel…responsible. She came up here with expectations and I…well, I didn’t fulfill them.”

  “Sure, Cal. No worries.”

  With that, he left, and I sat on the bed thinking I’d done the right thing. I got it. Vivienne was another lost soul who needed a place to settle for a while. Get her bearings. It was sort of ironic in a way. Eli had started this contest for some fun and games.

  What he got instead were a bunch of women running away from their life for one reason another. Shelby, Kate, Jenny. Now Vivienne. Which only made sense. Why else would a woman choose to come to Hope’s Point unless they were escaping something worse?

  Well, it was over. No more women. No more surprises. Rodgers would make sure Vivienne had what she needed. And I was absolved of any guilt I felt for not being some kind of damn hero.

  Someone who would take care of her and her child. Someone who would make sure they were always safe and secure.

  I was the last person on earth who should ever have that responsibility. Because I’d had it once, and I’d failed them.

  Never again. Never again.