Daughter of Destiny (14 page)

“Ooranye certainly is clairvoyant. It blows me away that she can get around just like us, though she's com
pletely blind. When she took us out to find witchetty grubs earlier today, I watched her listen like a dog with its ears up. And she seemed to know just where to dig under that bush to find those big white grubs.”

Wrinkling her nose, Kai said, “It made my stomach turn when she popped one in her mouth. Ugh!”

Laughing softly, Jake said, “Hey, they consider those grubs a big find. I was wondering if you were going to eat one when she offered it to you.”

“Carter, I would have to be starving to death, on my last legs, to even think of eating an insect.”

“You had survival training in the military, though,” he pointed out mildly. “You had to go through a couple of weeks in the woods or desert, didn't you?”

“Yeah, I did,” she muttered, frowning. “I didn't like it.”

“You ate insects then, didn't you?”

“No…I managed to kill a rattlesnake. It was good food. I avoid eating the Little People, the insects.”

“I'm impressed.”

Kai snorted. “I'm sure you had to go through survival training as a combat helicopter pilot.”

“Yes, I did. I ate night crawlers.”

“Dude, let's talk about something else, anything but
this,
okay?”

Chuckling, Jake controlled his urge to reach out and touch Kai's shoulder. She had stripped down to the sleeveless, low-cut pink tank top and a pair of silk shorts that barely covered the tops of her curved thighs. He'd like to explore those legs slowly and in great, lingering detail. Kai was in superior shape, her limbs firm and tight. Jake was
glad she couldn't read his mind or he was sure she'd deck him with those kick-boxing skills of hers.

“I want to call Mike Houston tomorrow morning on the satellite phone, Kai. I think he should be alerted that we've got some bad guys hanging around. We need to tell him we've discovered where the crystal mask is located, the information on Rowland and Marston, plus that we're going to have to spelunk to get to it.”

“That's a good idea.”

In the shadows, Jake saw Kai's narrowed eyes, her lowered brows. His gaze trailed to her mouth, which was pursed and puckered. A mouth he'd like to brush with his own. Poignantly recalling when he'd shyly kissed Kai one day at the old beech tree, Jake remembered how he'd felt as he'd touched her soft, tearstained mouth. Her lips had clung to his briefly, and the wild, euphoric feelings that bolted through him had made him jerk away in complete surprise. He'd seen that his kiss had made Kai feel better, because she'd reached up with her long, thin fingers and touched her lower lip, a look of awe in her flawless blue eyes as she'd stared at him in wonderment.

Jake gently tucked that memory away. That was then. This was now. Kai's mouth used to be full, the lower lip slightly pouty. These days her lips were often thinned, and she was tense and on guard. Right now, though, the starlight revealed how relaxed she was. An ache centered in his heart as he yearned, once more, to give her respite from a world that kept her constantly on guard.

Raising his brows, Jake lay down on his back, hands behind his head. “Kai, I need to talk to you.” His mouth was
dry, his heart pounding like a scared rabbit in his chest. He saw her turn and look at him. “About the past. The present. Us.” There, he'd gotten it out. How would Kai react? Jake was terribly unsure, but something powerful was pushing him to broach this supersensitive topic with her, because he wanted her in his life in the future. Would she have anything to do with it? With him?

“I
don't want to talk about it, Jake.” Kai felt bad because she'd heard the hope in his husky tone. “I—I just can't. Not now…”

Jake tried to squelch his disappointment. “Okay, Kai.”

“I need to sleep,” she muttered, apology in her tone.

“No problem…” Jake stared sightlessly through the darkness. Pain flowed through his heart and he felt it keenly.

Nostrils flaring. Kai stared at his long, powerful form silhouetted against the hut wall. She saw his rugged profile and how his mouth was compressed with unhappiness over her decision.

She closed her eyes. Old memories came floating back to her, of Jake's skinny but strong arms around her, holding her, rocking her while she wept her heart out, her face pressed against his youthful chest. One memory, painful and strong, came back to her as she stared at him. Her father had just beaten her with his old, cracked leather belt. He kept the belt hanging on a hook behind his bed
room door, and he used it to beat her with when he decided she needed a lickin'. And that was often enough, because Kai couldn't keep her rage suppressed and she'd confronted him daily, mouthing off to him, much to her regret.

Closing her eyes, Kai dragged her arm across her eyes as the memory overwhelmed her. Her father had gotten drunk on moonshine. He'd had a still where he made “white lightnin',” and would go to it every night and down a couple of slugs of the stuff. Then he'd stumble back to the cabin and start a fight with her mother. Kai remembered those nights all too well. She would stay in her room, do her homework and try to ignore the screaming and yelling that went on. Some nights were worse than others. Her mother would stand up to her father and then he'd hit her and knock her down. Even after she'd stop fighting back, Henry would continue to strike her as she crawled around on the floor, shrieking and trying to evade his pummeling fists.

It was those nights, as Kai hunkered at her small desk near her narrow pine bed, that her stomach became tied in knots. She'd grip the pencil so hard that her knuckles would whiten, and she'd wait with dread, hearing her mother's pitiful shrieks and her father's angry roars rising in a crescendo. Kai always knew when her father was going to beat her mother. She had a sixth sense about it. Henry would stalk her for days, goading her, being verbally abusive before she'd fight back, and then he'd beat the hell out of her.

One night, when Kai had heard the crack of her father's hand slapping her mother's face, she'd rocketed out of her room, shrieking in uncontrolled rage at him. She'd found
her father hunkered over her mother, who had been knocked to the white linoleum floor, her head against the cabinets. When Kai saw blood flowing out of her mother's nose, her mouth open and contorted with pain, tears trailing down her copper cheeks, she had mindlessly launched herself at her father, arms flailing, fingers arched like claws as she landed on his back. Kai had beaten him with every ounce of strength she'd had that night. She loved her mother and could no longer stand to have her crying or bleeding.

Something had changed in Kai that night. Had it ever, she thought, looking back on that terrible moment.

Turning her head, Kai gazed up through the hut's ceiling at the blinking stars. She didn't want to relive the minutes after her sudden and unexpected attack on her drunken father. She'd never hit her dad before, and it had caught him off guard. But not for long.

After he'd used the belt on her, Kai remembered staggering out of the house near dusk and running blindly toward the beech tree on the mountain. It was a good mile and a half away from their cabin, which sat on the floor of the valley, but Kai didn't care. As she ran like a deer, her skin smarting and swelling with thick purple welts, she sobbed. And when she ran up to the tree's sheltering arms, there was Jake, waiting for her. Kai was always amazed that he seemed to know when she'd be coming. Grateful that he was there, she had flung herself against him, crying wildly, like a wounded animal.

Oh, she remembered how gently and awkwardly Jake would pat her heaving shoulders, whisper broken, tearful
words meant to heal her. Often he would sit down, his back against the girth of the old beech, gently gather her into his arms and simply hold her.

 

Jake jerked awake. Sitting up, he heard Kai's soft sobbing. What time was it? he wondered. Getting to his hands and knees, he realized it was dawn, the horizon outside the door a pale gold color. Kai was curled in a fetal position, her body turned away from him. He reached toward her.

“Kai…?”

The moment Jake's hand connected with her shoulder, she awakened, sitting up quickly to face him. “Don't touch me!”

Recoiling, Jake sat up in turn. He saw terror in Kai's eyes and heard it in her voice. Holding up his hands, he rasped, “Okay…it's okay. You were just having a bad dream, Kai. You're safe now…you're here with me….” Jake recognized the panicked look in her eyes. He'd seen it so often when she was a child.

Gulping hard, Kai choked down the panic that was clawing up her throat from her knotted stomach. Her breathing was chaotic, and she so desperately wanted to fall into Jake's arms. His face was sleep-ridden, his eyes puffy as he sat tensely no more than a foot away from her. His voice was low and gentle. She clung to his words, words that he'd crooned to her so many times so long ago. She hated her past! She hated the pain she carried in the name of her drunken father. The son of a bitch! Even now, after his death, he was hurting her. Why should anyone have to suffer that kind of pain over and over again? She was the victim, not the perpetrator. Life was so damn unfair and vicious, in her experience.

Kai took a deep, shuddering breath. “I'm okay, Jake….”

“Can I get you something? Some water?”

Shaking her head, Kai pulled her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms over them. She forced herself to stop reacting like a scared little girl. She was a mature woman, a fighter pilot. It was funny how, in the cockpit, she was like steel behind the stick, not this mushy, emotional woman she was currently. Kai decided it had to be the circumstances.

“I don't want to be
here!
” she whispered harshly.

Jake sat patiently. Kai's hair was in disarray. She'd loosened her braid sometime after he'd fallen asleep, and her hair was like a shining cloak around her shaking shoulders. How badly he wanted to touch her, to soothe her. Jake knew he could; he'd done it as a child. Yet she'd spurned his attempt just now. Bitterly, he sat there, knowing he could do nothing except be a silent witness to her suffering.

Lifting her face, Kai wiped the perspiration from her brow and cheeks with several swipes of her trembling fingers. When she looked at Jake, she saw he had moved closer, his face deeply shadowed with concern.

“Was it a dream?” he asked quietly. To hell with it. He reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Something…” she croaked. His touch was warm. Supportive. More tears leaked from her eyes. She didn't try to hide them from him. Seeing the agony in his own narrowed eyes, she sniffed and gulped.

“Was it a new dream? Not the same as the ones before?”

Just hearing his quiet, low tone helped soothe Kai's fractious state. She pushed her fingers through her hair and squared her shoulders to rid herself of the fear that inhab
ited her. His hand left her shoulder. Jake reached for a wooden pitcher and poured some water into a wooden cup. He held it toward her and Kai humbly accepted it.

As she gulped the tepid water, several drops spilled from the corners of her mouth and splattered on her pink silk T-shirt. Finishing it off, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Giving the cup back to Jake, she whispered, “Thanks….”

“Sure.” Their fingers touched briefly as he took it. There was such anguish in Kai's shadowed blue eyes that Jake ached for her.

“You know what I'd like to do for you right now?” he whispered unsteadily.

“No…” Kai sniffed and looked into his eyes. She saw such care in them, just as there had been in the past.

“I'd like to hold you. Like before. When we were kids…”

The words strung hauntingly between them and Jake wasn't sure if the offer would soothe Kai or hurt her. He watched her face, holding his breath.

Without a word, she crawled over to him. She saw the relief on Jake's face as he opened his arms wide to receive her.

Oh! The past was never far away! Kai realized. But she didn't care. Her dreams had been too virulent, leaving her feeling stripped and alone. She nestled in his arms, feeling the warmth of his strong body as she placed her head against his shoulder, nose pressed against his neck. She sighed. It was a sigh that felt old, as if it had been held for a long time within her. As Jake's arms moved around her and he brought her fully against him, Kai closed her eyes, feeling the solid beat of his heart against her hand as she slid it across his chest.

“When will the past stop haunting me?” she whispered brokenly, new tears leaking out from beneath her lashes.

Jake shook his head, lifted his hand and gently stroked the silken length of her hair down her back. “I don't know, Kai, but I do know one thing….” He looked down at her. In the grayness of the dawn light, she seemed more like a vulnerable child to him than the woman she was. Here eyes were closed. There were wet tear tracks down her face, her soft lips parted, the lower one quivering.

“Wh-what?” she asked quietly.

“That I want to be here with you. That I like holding you as I did when we were kids. For me, holding you again is a dream come true. I might not be able to chase the demons from inside you, but at least by holding you I can give you a moment's rest from them….”

Nodding, she savored Jake's quiet tone as it washed away her terror. “You've always been my safe haven, Jake.”

He chuckled quietly. “Some things don't change, Kai. And I'm glad they don't.”

She opened her eyes, pulling her head away just enough to look into his narrowed, smoldering gaze. Oh, how close his lips were! How she ached to kiss him. “When you left, I lost track of you. I tried to find you, but I never did….”

Nodding, Jake touched her cheek and brushed the tears away with his fingers. “I tried to find you, too, but it didn't work.”

“We went our separate ways, Jake.”

“And look what happened.” He felt the soft strength of her beneath his trembling fingers. Touching Kai was like touching life itself. Never had Jake felt so good, so happy,
as right now. “We thought what we had was gone, but the Great Spirit has brought us back together again. I'm grateful for that, Kai.”

Nodding, Kai closed her eyes and felt the hurt rising in her chest. “I don't even know if you're married. Or what's happened to you since…since we last…”

Jake shifted position and eased Kai against him as he supported himself against the wall of the hut. “That's easy to share with you.” Closing his eyes, he rested his head against Kai's. “When my dad got orders from the Air Force, we picked up and left the res. That was about a few weeks after your parents died. He was sent to Germany. I kicked around Air Force bases until I was eighteen, when I went into the U.S. Army to learn to fly helicopters. I like what I do, Kai. I like flying the Apache combat helicopter. I'd like to think I make a difference in the world.”

“You've always been a warrior, Jake. Like me.” Kai melted into him, her heart beating time to his. “I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise to me that you went into the military.”

“I was surprised you did,” he murmured. Giving her a gentle squeeze, he rasped, “I had all kinds of crazy dreams about you when I was growing up. I wondered if you were okay. I figured your Gram would take care of you. She's a good person, so I knew you would be okay. At least—” he grimaced “—she wasn't an abuser like your father. She's always loved you.”

“Yes, she does. She helped me to see that not all men are bad like my father was. I owe her a lot, Jake.”

“She's the best,” he agreed.

“Are you married? Have a bunch of kids?” Kai's throat ached with tension. She didn't want to think of Jake as married, but he was such a wonderful person that she couldn't imagine some woman hadn't snagged him yet.

“No. Oh, came close a few times, but…” he smiled distantly “…I had this blue-eyed Indian girl who stole my heart long ago, and I just never got over her or forgot her through all these years.”

The words were spoken haltingly and with great emotion. Kai moved her hand up around Jake's neck and pressed herself more closely to him. She couldn't believe that he had been thinking of her all these years. That he'd felt so much for her. “You never married?” she asked in disbelief.

Shaking his head, Jake said, “No. I had some good relationships, Kai, but none so serious that I wanted to walk down the aisle. Once, when I was twenty-one, I lived with a woman, but that broke up after a year because she found someone else who had more money and prestige.”

“Good riddance.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. At the time, it hurt like hell, but afterward, I realized it was a good thing.” He opened his eyes and lifted his head to look down at Kai. “How about you? I didn't see any wedding ring on your left hand, but nowadays you never can tell what that means. You have a steady other in your life?”