Cain's Salvation (Passion in Paradise - The Men of the McKinnon Sisters) (13 page)

Cain’s heart thudded in his chest as
Faith slowly nodded.  Licking his dry lips, he scooted closer and dropped
the hand chained to hers over her knee.  Okay, he thought, this is
it.  “Why don’t you start?” he invited, keeping his voice low and
steady. 

“Where?” she asked faintly.

“Wherever you want,” he answered
firmly.  He’d explain anything she wanted an explanation for.  God
knew, he’d made a lot of shitty choices over the last half year.  “I’m an
open book, Faith.  All you have to do is ask.”

“Did you have doubts about us when you
left for Afghanistan?” Faith asked, her voice shaky as she voiced her first concern. 
“When you first proposed to me, did you already have doubts about us?”

“No,” he replied firmly, shaking his
head.  “The night I proposed and you said yes was the best night of my
life.  I was head over heels in love.  I had the perfect woman for me.
 I couldn’t imagine anything separating us for long.  Not even a war
halfway around the world.  When I left you, I was truly in love with you,
and that hasn’t changed for me.  It never will, Faith.  I have never
doubted the love I feel for you.  It’s the one constant that I’ve been
entirely sure of.”

“Bullshit!” Faith cursed roughly, her
entire body stiffening as she listened to him speak.  “That is complete,
utter bullshit.  You doubted your love for me enough to write me a letter
that totally firebombed my world.”

“I did that,” he confirmed hoarsely, not
bothering to deny the obvious.  “It was a stupid, selfish thing to
do.  It’s the single biggest mistake I ever made in my life, and I’ll go
to my grave regretting it.  It didn’t have anything to do with my love for
you,
though.  It was my own stupid thoughts about me that compelled
me to write that letter.  I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Faith. 
There aren’t even enough words for it.”

“Well, as long as you
feel bad
,
everything’s okay then, huh?” Faith retorted, yanking his arm when she crossed
her arms over her chest.  “You
gutted
me, Cain.  You were my
first love…. my first lover… my first
everything
.  What the hell
did you think was going to happen when I got that letter?”

Cain sighed. “Honestly?” 

“No,” Faith snapped.  “Lie to me
some more.  I
love
that,” she added caustically, her eyes flashing
with pure rage as she glared at him.

Cain was encouraged.  This was the
most emotion he’d witnessed from her since they’d made love.  “I’m not
lying about anything, Faith.  When I mailed the letter, I was banking on
you being enraged.  I figured you’d be so angry that you’d move on with
your life out of spite.  I half expected to come home and find you married
to one of the local boys.  Hell, they’ve all been half in love with you
for years anyway.”

“You thought my heart was so fickle that
I’d just trade one man for another?  Nice, Cain.  I’m glad to know
what you really think of me,” Faith replied, disgust dripping from every word.

“No!  That isn’t what I meant,
Faith,” Cain groaned, running his free hand over his closely cropped
hair.  Christ, was he doomed to dig an even deeper grave for himself with
this woman?  Couldn’t he say one damn thing the right way?  “I just
thought you’d realize that there were better men out there for you.”

“I didn’t want another man, you
fool!  I wanted
you
!  Although for the life of me, I don’t
know why,” she muttered, shaking her head.  “When I got that letter in the
mail, do you know what I did?  I blamed
myself.
I spent months
wondering what I’d done wrong.  I went through every single moment of our
time together and tried to pinpoint where exactly I’d screwed up with
you.  Over and over and over.  I couldn’t eat, didn’t sleep and
basically cried my through every day.  For
months!”

“It wasn’t about you, Faith,” Cain
whispered.  “I broke things off because of
me… because of the way I was
over there
.”

“Well, I had no way of knowing that, did
I, Cain?  Your letter certainly didn’t say that.  Hell, saying it was
a letter is too kind,” she informed him with a bitter laugh.  “Your
scribbled little note simply told me that we were over and that I needed to
move on with my life.  It didn’t contain any pesky details like
why
we were over.  And in the absence of facts, a person’s mind will create
all kinds of interesting scenarios to fill in the blanks.  Wanna know my
mind’s favorite one?  Want me to tell you what I imagined?”

“Go ahead,” he replied
thickly,   He knew whatever she said would hurt them both, but in
order to heal the wounds he’d inflicted on her heart and soul, she needed to
purge.  Watching her clenched face as he waited for her to speak again, he
hated himself for what he’d done to her.

“I imagined what she looked like,” Faith
said softly in a voice filled with anguish.  “Was she another soldier,
Cain, or was she someone you met over there?”

In that moment, Cain realized exactly
what Faith assumed and he wanted to be sick to his stomach.  “You think
this is about another woman?” he asked tightly, his hands curling into fists as
his head throbbed.  When she didn’t speak after a full minute of taut
silence, he knew he had his answer.

“What else could have made you write me
a letter out of the clear blue sky breaking up with me?” Faith asked faintly as
she stared into space.  “Another woman makes sense to me.  What
happened?  Did you two hit a rough patch?  So you thought you’d just
skip back to good, reliable Faith, Cain, and like a nice, faithful dog, she’d
take you back?  Was she more experienced than me?  Was she a better
fuck?  A better friend?  Did she understand you?” Faith sneered,
jerking forward to slam her free hand against his chest.  “What?!” she
shouted, turning hurt filled eyes on him.  “Tell me about the woman that
replaced me,” she demanded, striking him again and again as she sobbed and her
self-contained shell finally cracked open.  “TELL ME!”

Faith gasped as the emotional dam burst
inside her and a tidal wave of pain erupted.  Striking him everywhere she
could reach, she was dimly aware of Cain’s stunned face as she raked her nails
over his scarred cheek.  In that moment, she hated him with a ferocity
that shocked them both.  She attacked him like a rabid wildcat, landing
blow after blow against his bigger body.  Oh, how she wished she was a man
- that her smaller frame held a quarter of the strength he possessed. 
She’d love to inflict just a portion of the pain on him that he’d given her.

“C’mon, Cain,” she shrieked, “You wanted
to talk!  You wanted all of it between us.  You wanted to
fight!  So fight me!” Breathing hard, she clutched his shirt and shook
him.  “Say something!” she ordered shrilly, coming to her knees and
flinching as the handcuffs bit into her skin.

Cain captured her free wrist and held it
tightly.  “Faith, stop,” he ordered harshly.

“Stop?” She laughed hollowly.  “You
want me to
stop
?  I thought you wanted to know how I
felt
. 
You wanted me to yell and scream and curse you.  Aw, am I not giving you
the reaction you wanted?  Poor Cain,” she clucked in mock sympathy. 
“He just can’t win, can he?” she asked, her voice dripping with contempt.

“Enough,” he said sharply, tightening
his hand around her wrist when she would have lifted her arm against him
again.  He didn’t care about being hit, but every time she landed a blow,
she twisted her manacled wrist.  The skin beneath the metal had already
grown a bright, angry red.   “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“You’re worried about me getting
hurt? 
Now
?   You are un
believable
,” Faith
spat.  “I can’t possibly do any more damage to myself than you have,” she
hissed.  God, she wanted to draw his blood.  She wanted to watch him
writhe in unbearable agony.  She watched him grimace and smiled. 
“Does it
hurt
, Cain, hearing about what you did to me?  Does it
feel like somebody is ripping the heart right out of your chest? Do you want to
die?  I certainly hope so, because God knows, I did!”

“Yes!” he admitted harshly, his jaw
flexing wildly as he bit out the single word.

“Good,” Faith sneered, feeling somewhat
validated that she’d managed to hurt him.  “Payback is a bitch,” she added
scornfully.

Both of them froze as an envelope was
slipped under the door of the freezer. 

“What’s that?” Faith asked, scrambling
toward the white envelope, pulling him with her.  Snatching it with the
tips of her fingers, she pulled it toward them.  “Take this as a sign of
our goodwill and remember we’re trying to help,” she read aloud.

“That’s my brother’s chicken scratch,”
Cain remarked, peering at the writing over her shoulder.

Flipping the envelope over, Faith rolled
her eyes.  “P.S. – It was Zeke’s idea,” she read aloud.  “My ass,”
she mocked, shaking her head. 

“What’s in it?” Cain asked, watching as
she slit open the seal.

“The key!” she squealed, excited, her earlier
anger dampened for the moment.  “You think he unlocked the door, too?” she
asked as Cain took the key and quickly released them from their cuffs. 

“I doubt it,” he muttered, watching as
Faith surged to her feet and darted toward the cooler door.

Shoving with every ounce of strength she
possessed, the door remained an insurmountable obstacle on her path to
freedom.  Slapping her hand against it, Faith hung her head and rested it
against the cool metal.  “We’re still trapped,” she moaned, squeezing her
eyes closed as she fought a fresh wave of tears.

“It’s just as well,” he said from behind
her.  “You and I aren’t done, Faith,” he continued, tossing Zeke’s
handcuffs into the box they’d used for their supplies.  “Turn around and
look at me, sweetheart.”

Exhausted, Faith shook her head against
the door, her emotional energy suddenly zapped.  “Haven’t we had enough
honesty yet, Cain?” she asked tiredly as she turned and stared at him.

“No.  There never was and has never
been another woman for me,” he replied softly.  “I’ve committed a lot of
sins.  Some of them… they can’t be forgiven.  Cheating on you… on
what we had together was
never
one of them.  Even when we weren’t
together, I was never with anybody else.  I was a fucking idiot, and I was
an asshole, but I have
never,
not once in my life, been a cheater.”

Faith sagged against the door as relief
flooded her.  She could see the truth burning bright in his earnest eyes
as he stared back at her.  “Y-you were faithful?  There wasn’t
someone else?” she questioned weakly. 

“Faith, from the moment I took your
innocence, I knew that there wouldn’t be anyone else for me.  Not that
way.  You are the
only
woman I want.  You’re the only woman
I’ll
ever
want.  The thought of touching somebody else like
that…”  Cain shuddered and shook his head.  “The thought of touching
another woman’s body makes me sick, Faith,” he confided softly.  “You
never had anything to worry about there.  You’re the other piece of me,
honey.  Nobody else would ever fit.”

“Then
why
?” Faith asked, her
voice cracking.  “If I’m the only one, why would you light a match and set
our life together on fire?  Why would you just stand back and watch us
burn?”  She wanted to understand.  She could accept that he was
telling her the truth about being faithful.  Cain had his faults, but he
didn’t lie.  So, why?  Why did he break her heart?

“I want to answer that question,” he
replied quietly.  “I do.  You have to understand, though, it’s
complicated.  If you’ll give me a chance to explain, I’ll try.”

Nodding slowly, Faith wrapped her arms
around herself and moved back to the pallet.  “I want to hear it.  I
want to understand,” she said, sitting down and pulling her knees to her chest
as he resumed his place beside her.

Silently, she waited for him to gather
his courage and tell his story.

Cain reached for Faith’s hand and laced
his shaking fingers through hers, relieved that she allowed his touch.  So
far, so good, he thought to himself.  She wasn’t automatically jerking
away from him out of habit.  She was letting him hold her hand.  He
drew strength from that simple show of affection.  “Before I get started,
I want you to know that I’m getting help, Faith.  I’m not trying to fight
my demons alone.”

“Help?” Faith echoed as she frowned at
him.  “Cain, what kind of help do you need?” she asked uneasily, shifting
closer to him so that their knees touched.

“I found a therapist to talk to over in
Rutledge,” he admitted quietly, “He’s an alright guy.  He specializes in
treating veterans and is easier to talk to than I thought he’d be at
first.  I’ve been seeing him three times a week for about the past
month.  I wanted to be healthy if you decided to give me another chance.”

“Oh, Cain,” Faith whispered, her eyes
going soft on his anguished face.   “What the hell happened to you
over there?” she asked, tightening her hand around his.

“So fucking much, Faith,” he confided
sadly.  “Too much.  War… it’s not what we see in the movies or on the
nightly news.  The movies get it wrong for the sake of ratings and the
news only shows the sanitized truth… the things that will rally us around the
flagpoles and fill us with patriotic pride.  They don’t tell us
everything.  If they did, nobody would sign up to fight.”

“You sound so bitter,” Faith worried,
her brow creasing as she watched his eyes darken. 

“Trust me, I sound a lot better now than
I did when I came home,” he replied truthfully.  When he’d gotten back to
the States, he hadn’t cared if he lived or died.  Hell, if he was
completely honest, a part of him had hoped for death.  That would have
meant an end to the nightmares. 

“You were home a month before Abel told
anybody,” Faith said slowly.  “Why?”

Shrugging, Cain shook his head.  “I
didn’t want to see anybody.  Abel and Dad knew I was here.  Evidently,
Zeke figured it out.  I did my damndest to avoid everybody.  I wasn’t
fit company to be around.  I was pissed at the world and didn’t hesitate
to strike out when I felt like it.”

“Are you still mad?” Faith asked as she
tried to follow the conversation.

“No,” Cain offered quietly, stroking his
thumb against the soft skin of her hand.  “I’m sadder than anything else
now.”  Clearing his throat, he forced himself to look into her confused
eyes.  “I should start at the beginning.”

Faith nodded.  She wanted to hear
what he had to say.  She’d spent months of her life wondering and
supposing.  It was finally time to learn the truth...if she ever wanted to
move forward, she knew that she had to learn this part, too. 

“Afghanistan… it’s not like what you see
on the news, Faith. It’s worse.  Fuck, it’s a shithole.  Everything
is brown and lifeless.    And, it smells worse.  It’s hot
and dry.  There’s fucking sand in everything.  You can’t keep the
shit off you.  But the absolute worst part is the way that godforsaken
place sucks the life out of you.  After a couple of months there, it just
depletes you,” he tried to explain, staring at the wall of the cooler.

“I remember how tired you sounded those
last few times you called home,” Faith recalled softly.  “It sounded like
you were trying to hold the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“Felt like it, too,” Cain confessed
reluctantly, shrugging.  “All of us were getting too little sleep. 
The hospital was understaffed and we were taking dozens of injuries a
day.  Supplies were running low.  A lot of things went wrong all at
once.”

“Like what?” Faith questioned, tilting
her head as she watched the play of emotions cross Cain’s face. 
Sadness.  Rage.  Desolation.   Everything she saw reflected
in his eyes scared the hell out of her.

“The week I sent you that letter, I’d
lost nine patients.  Back to back.  I remember coming back to my room
and staring in the mirror.  I hated the person I saw.    My
patients had just turned into numbers for me.  I didn’t even see them as
people anymore, Faith.  I was angry and hopeless and only halfway through
my tour.  Hell, I couldn’t visualize getting through the next week, let
alone the next six months.  Memories of you were my one escape. Part of me
wanted to reach out to you, but I knew that wasn’t fair.  I’d have only
scared you.   I didn’t want to call you or my family and let you hear
the kind of man I’d turned into over there.”

“I would have listened, Cain.  I’d
have been there for you if you’d let me.  I know you think I’m naïve, but
I’m not stupid.  If you’d have explained it, I would have understood, or
at least tried to understand.”

“You’d have tried, sweetheart.  I
know that,” Cain replied with a sad smile.  “But there’s no way you could
have truly understood.  I don’t
want
you to ever understand that
kind of despair.”

Giving him an unhappy look, she nodded
for him to continue.

“At any rate, when a man is that low,
he’ll start thinking all kinds of insanity.  I convinced myself that I’d
never be able to be the man you fell in love with back here in Paradise. 
I couldn’t foresee a time when I’d be able to laugh and joke again.  I
didn’t want that for you.”

“So, you decided to let me go,” Faith
surmised.  Her eyes stung as she tried to hold back her tears.

“Yeah,” Cain said heavily.  “I
wrote the letter and mailed it out to you.  Things didn’t get any easier
over there after I did.  The patients kept rolling in, and I worked on
soldier after soldier.  I just focused on getting through the days, and I
spent my nights trying to use my memories of you to hold the nightmares at
bay.”

It sounded like a crappy way to live to
Faith.  As bad as things had been for her here at home, at least she’d had
her sisters and Aunt Orla.  Hell, what Cain had been forced to do couldn’t
even be considered living as much as simply existing.  She despised how
hopeless he sounded as he told his story.  This wasn’t
her
Cain.  This wasn’t the man she’d watched board an airplane with a smile
and wave to her.  This wasn’t the man that she’d imagined marrying and
having a family with.

“Eventually, though, I realized that I’d
just about made it through my tour, and the only thing I could still think
about was you.  I knew I’d been wrong to end things with you, Faith. 
I was coming home to make things right.  I was going to beg and plead with
you to take me back, give me a second chance and marry me.  I realized
that it was going to be tough, but the one thing I knew above everything else
was that you were worth it,” he declared passionately, gripping her hand as his
gaze willed her to believe him.

“Then why didn’t you, Cain?” Faith asked
with a hurt look.  “Why did it take my sister bullying you of the family
homestead to get you to see me again?  What happened?”

“These,” Cain answered hoarsely,
gesturing at his scarred cheek.  “I was on my way to brief the doctor that
was going to replace me at the combat hospital.  He was working at one of
the forward operating bases in the region and I rode with a small convoy carrying
supplies to the base.  About three miles from our destination, we were
ambushed by enemy forces.  I was in the first Humvee.  Their IED took
us out.  We rolled and crashed on our side.  The driver was killed
instantly; he took a direct hit.  I was mostly okay, but pinned inside the
truck.  We were on fire and surrounded.  I watched those bastards
take out our boys one by one.  They were just kids, Faith.  Most of
them weren’t any older than Honor.  It was like watching somebody shoot
fish in a barrel.” 

Faith held Cain’s hand tightly when he
paused and shuddered, his eyes tightly closed as he seemed to relive those
moments. 

“I took out three of them,” he confided
harshly.  “I’m a doctor and I took down three men like their lives didn’t
mean a thing.  I wanted to kill every single one of them.  I would
have if I could have, too.”

“You were defending yourself!” Faith
exclaimed, pressing against him as she tried to take some of his pain. 
“You did what you had to do to save your life and the lives of…”

“Nobody else lived, Faith.  By the
time choppers flew over to give us cover fire, those kids were all down. 
Ground forces arrived and got me out of the humvee, but all the rest…” 
Cain’s voice cracked as he gasped for breath.  “There were six of
them.  Six kids who never got to go home again.  And me?  The
doctor that could have saved them all if I hadn’t been wedged into a steel
box?  I got out of there with a few beauty marks.”

Faith thought the angry puckered scars
crisscrossing one arm and the side of his neck and face were far more serious
than that, but she kept her peace.  She knew it was his turn to exorcise
his demons now, but she couldn’t just sit there while he was hurting and say
nothing at all.  “Cain, you did everything you could over there.  You
did the best you could under horrible circumstances.  That’s all anybody
has the right to ask of you,” she offered softly, lifting a hand to stroke his
marred jaw.  “You are not responsible for the sins of the world. 
That is not your cross to bear.”

Breathing hard, Cain shook his head
furiously.  “I took an oath to do no harm, Faith.  Between the lives
I couldn’t save and the lives I took, I came back from the war zone a
completely different person.  All I wanted to do when I got back was crawl
in a hole with as much liquor as I could stomach and lick my wounds.  I
hated the world.  I was selfish and self-absorbed.  I couldn’t see
past my own pain.”

“Considering everything you’d seen and
been through, I think that’s a pretty understandable reaction,” Faith
acknowledged softly.  Yes, his actions had hurt her.  They’d
devastated her.  But knowing the origin of it, she realized that it wasn’t
something that she couldn’t forgive him for doing.  Staring in his
turbulent eyes, she could still see the man she loved.  “You said that
you’re getting help,” she whispered, brushing the back of her fingers over his
scarred cheek.  “That’s a big step in the right direction.”  Faith
watched his strong throat work as he swallowed and nodded.

“Yeah,” he conceded.  “It hasn’t
been easy talking about it, but I knew it was necessary.  When I got home,
I tried to drown those memories with beer and vodka.  Hell, with whatever
I had handy.  It didn’t work.  Every time I closed my eyes, it was
all there, burned in my mind.  Then, the night of the bar brawl, Abel came
into my apartment, yelling and screaming that you’d been hurt.  He warned
me that if I didn’t pull myself together, I was going to lose any chance I
might have had with you.  Honestly, he scared the hell out of me.  I
went to your place that night.”

“You did?” Faith questioned weakly.

“Yeah, I sat outside your window until
the sun came up.  I just needed to be close to you.  My mind went
through every single bad thing that could have happened to you.  I just
kept playing it over and over in my mind.  It scared the shit out of
me.  I decided then and there that I wanted you more than I wanted my
misery, but I guess the doctor in me recognized that I was gonna need
professional help.   I came home and found Dr. Albright’s number that
morning.  I called him after Honor showed up and reinforced everything I’d
already decided.  I gotta hand it to that girl,” he admitted with a tiny
smile, “She can give a man a “Come to Jesus” moment better than anyone I’ve
ever seen.”

“That’s Honor,” Faith agreed, returning
his grin with a gentle smile of her own.  “She looks out for all of
us.  And if you tell her I said this next part, I’ll deny it, but she
generally seems to know what’s best for all of us.”

“As much as I value Honor’s opinion,
right now, yours is the only one I care about, Faith,” Cain countered softly,
holding her eyes captive with his.  “I’ve told you everything,
honey.  I’ve come clean to the bone.  There’s nothing I haven’t told
you.  It’s all in the open between us now.  So, put me out of my
misery and tell me, do I still have even the glimmer of a chance with you?” he
asked, laying it all on the line.

“I love you,” Faith replied huskily, the
words coming easily as she wiped away a tear.  “Even when I was trying so
hard to hate you, I loved you.”

“I love you, too, sweet Faith,” Cain
returned hoarsely.  “So much that it hurts, but that’s not an
answer.  Can you forgive me for being a coward?”

“You are
not
a coward!” Faith
declared forcefully, her eyes flashing as she glared at him.  “You were
confused and hurt and angry.  You’re not a coward.  Don’t you ever
say that again.”

Hopeful, Cain nodded.  “Yes,
ma’am.”

“And no more being ashamed of what you
had to do over there either.  War is an awful, terrible experience. 
I understand that.  People have to do things that they’d never normally
do.  Yes, you’re a doctor, but you were also a soldier.  Sometimes
soldiers have to kill.  It’s part of the job.  You’ve got to stop
crucifying yourself for it.”

“Thank you, Dr. Albright,” Cain teased,
his gaze lightening on her determined face.

“I probably could have saved you a lot
of therapy fees if you’d just come to me when you got home,” Faith muttered
under her breath, “But I’m glad you found help from someone.  If he’s
helping you see that what you had to do in Afghanistan was justifiable, I’ll
kiss his feet myself.  I won’t have our children thinking that you’re
anything less than a hero for your service.  Not even their father gets to
confuse them about that.”