Stranded by Dani Pettrey

Author:Dani Pettrey
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC042040, FIC042060, FIC027110, Missing persons—Fiction, Alaska—Fiction
ISBN: 9781441262738
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2013-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

25

Kayden stepped from her tent to find Jake at the fire. She’d been trying to build up her courage ever since returning to camp. She had to face him, had to look him in the eye and apologize for thinking the worst of him.

The temperature had dropped another ten degrees, and despite the clear sky, the scent of rain hung in the air.

She was hopeless when it came to personal stuff. She felt affection and sorrow deeply but couldn’t express them. That was Piper’s strength. Kayden was best at keeping it all stuffed down deep, at being the independent one, at being strong and stalwart.

I don’t even know where to begin my apology to Jake, Father. I’ve doubted his character, maligned his integrity, kept him at arm’s length when I couldn’t have been more wrong about the man he is and what he’s suffered. Please, give me the words. For once let them pour from my heart. Help him to know how genuinely sorry I am for misjudging him for so long.

Jake stoked the flames as she approached, sparks flickering into the black sky.

She slid her hands into her jacket pockets—the fleece snug and warm—and took a seat on the log.

He didn’t bother looking up. “She told you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Only after we pressed her. You were right. I wouldn’t let it go.”

He tossed the branch he’d been using to stoke the fire into it and stood.

She stood with him. “But I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.” How could he accept a measly apology after the way she’d treated him? “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“It’s fine.”

“What?” How could he say that?

“Really. No worries. Let’s leave the past in the past—where it belongs.”

“But I . . .”

He didn’t give her a chance to respond, just headed for his tent.

Jake kicked off his boots at the entrance and stepped inside his tent. The thick mat tarp did little to insulate his socked feet from the cold earth underneath.

He hadn’t thought a heart could possibly shatter any more than his already had, but he was wrong. Painfully wrong.

Kayden’s eyes—always so full of strength and determination—now brimmed with pity for him. It was more than he could bear.

Losing Becca and their little girl had nearly destroyed him. It’d ended his desire to be a cop, ended his desire for much of anything. . . . And then he’d landed in Yancey and met the McKennas. Slowly he’d begun to trust again—worse yet, to hope again.

But now that they knew, now that Kayden knew, they’d pity him, and he couldn’t stand the thought. He’d worked so long to keep the memories at bay. To erase the image of Becca dead on the road, not a block from their home, her beautiful brown eyes lifeless. But now he was Jake Cavanagh again—the Jake Westin Cavanagh he’d thought he’d left in Boston, buried with his wife and child.

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