LEANNE WAS IN Caleb’s truck, pushing the speed as far as it was safe to do, heading back to town, continually pulling over, punching buttons on her phone, hoping to get reception, then moving on when she didn’t. Try after try, no bars, nothing. She was desperate to hear her dad’s voice on the other end. Desperate to get help up to Eagle Pointe. And more desperate than anything not to have to leave Caleb behind. And Matthew…if he was inside the cave.
And daylight…she was desperate for that, too. But it wasn’t yet two, and whatever happened to rescue Caleb would be done in the dark. Which scared her, as nobody in Marrell, to her knowledge, was qualified to do that kind of rescue. And like it or not, she was probably the best climber in the area, next to Jack Hanson, who was on his way in from Phoenix but not here yet. Which meant…
Suddenly an image of Eagle Point flashed its way past her memory. It was at night. That night. Everybody was there. Including Caleb. All the kids from town. Doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Partying. Drinking. And… Her stomach knotted. Her breath caught in her lungs. The image disappeared.
Leanne pulled over yet again, tried her phone again, and clicked it off once more when she got nothing. Except another flash. Caleb. Talking to Scott. The two of them looking at her. Laughing. She could see it. But why that image? Why was that returning? And now? Caleb… Scott… The image stayed there as she continued toward town. It was poking her now. Not staying flat but coming to life. Springing out, grabbing, clutching her, choking her… And she was getting light-headed. Her breathing labored. So, she pulled over again, punched in her dad’s phone number once more. Tried to catch her breath. Tried to calm the panic attack that was trying to take her.
Then, suddenly, all she could see was her anger. Red. Furious. And directed at Caleb. She wanted to hurt him. Wanted him to hurt the way she did, because he hadn’t turned out to be her friend the way she’d always thought he was. Because… “Oh, no,” she whispered, as her hands started to shake, and the floodgate of memories opened. “Oh…no. No.”
“Hello? Leanne?” a familiar voice crackled over the phone, breaking into her thoughts. “Is that you, Leanne?”
She slapped at the tear sliding down her cheek, then shook her head to stop the dam that had just burst. “I’m in Marrell, Dad. Came in a little while ago. And I have an injury out here. I need help. Caleb’s been injured. He might be…”
* * *
“What are you doing up here?” she asked her dad, who’d trekked up the mountain path with a dozen others.
“I may be old, but I’ve done this more than you have.” He was carrying a backpack full of medical supplies, which he handed over to Leanne. He stopped near the edge and shone his flashlight down. “Any signs of life?”
She shook her head. “It’s been half an hour, and Caleb hasn’t stirred. I’ve been calling for Matthew, but if he’s in the cave, he’s either too afraid to call back or he’s hurt, too.” She slung the pack over her shoulder and headed to the edge of the cliff, where a rope was being tied off for her. To her knowledge, this was the first time she’d ever really worked with her dad.
“You sure you want to be the one to go over?” he asked her. “A couple of the men up here are pretty experienced climbers.”
“Not as good as me, Dad.” But he probably didn’t know that. Hadn’t paid attention during that summer Jack Hanson had taught her. “And since I’ve got the medical background…” She gave her dad a quick hug and got herself into position to be lowered. “Who’s minding the hospital, by the way?”
“Dora. And Jack will be here shortly. He’s about an hour out, last time I heard.”
“Good. Too bad he didn’t make it in time to go down with me.” She cinched in, and backed all the way to the edge. Took a deep breath, then lowered herself. All the while facing her returning memories as she climbed. The last time she’d climbed down there had been that night. Caleb had gone down, she didn’t know why. Didn’t care. Hadn’t cared then. In fact, all she’d cared about had been getting down there with a couple of friends following her, and to humiliate him. Betray him the way he’d betrayed her. Or betrayed, from a teenager’s perspective.
Now she was going down to rescue him.
Luckily, twelve feet didn’t take any time to scale, and within a minute she was kneeling alongside Caleb, feeling for a pulse. Thanks heavens it was strong. But his face…his beautiful face was all bashed. Cuts, bruises, what looked to be a broken cheekbone. And his shoulder…the one he’d injured before. Definitely broken. “You’re in rough shape,” she said, as her hands skimmed the rest of his body in a quick assessment. Legs seemed fine. Belly wasn’t distended or rigid, so he might have escaped internal injuries. Pupils equal and reactive. “But you’re stable, and I’ve got a litter on the way down to pull you back up top.”
Except she had to go and see if Matthew was in the cave before she strapped Caleb in, because if Matthew needed to be out of here first… “Don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m going to look for Matthew.” She picked up his hand and brushed a light kiss to it. “Just don’t move, Caleb. Listen to me. Do not move. And, please, trust me. No matter what I’ve done, no matter what I’ve said in the past, trust me now.”
She waved up to one of the rescuers who was on his way down to stay with Caleb. Then grabbed her backpack, darted into the darkness of the cave, turned on her light and started to navigate the narrow passageway toward the back. It wasn’t a very wide cave but it was deep. And she hesitated before she proceeded. “You can do this,” she whispered. “You’ve got to do this…” She blew out a hard breath and fought back the nausea trying to rise in her. Not because she feared the cave. She didn’t. But because she feared what she might find in it. “For Matthew,” she said, then took a step, then another. Stopped. Steadied herself against the passage wall, and the horrible memories trying to push her back, and called out to Matthew again. Her voice was so unsteady, she didn’t even recognize it as it bounced along in front of her. “I’m coming after you.” Fighting unwilling legs. Fighting clear thoughts of what had happened. To Caleb. And to her.
“Matthew? Are you here?” Her voice echoed back through the chamber, but that’s all she heard. So, she kept going forward, kept looking. Shining her light. Shivering against the chill. Struggling against the mental avalanche that was threatening to bury her alive if she let it. “Matthew…” But she wouldn’t let it. She was stronger than that. Finally, stronger now that she knew. And she had two people she loved who needed her help. “Can you make a noise so I’ll know where to look?” she called out.
But he didn’t, and her next minute was filled with starts and stops, listening, moving on. Then, after what seemed an eternity but which her logical brain told her had only been a few minutes, she stumbled over something in the passage and fell to her knees. Before she righted herself, she flashed her light over the passage floor, and that’s when she saw it. A camera lens. It had rolled off to the side and she’d almost missed it. But it was there. And Matthew was, too, somewhere.
Scrambling to her knees, Leanne pushed herself up to standing, doubled her speed and continued toward the back, where the narrow passage closed into a belly-crawling tunnel for about fifty feet, then opened into a large chamber. A chamber she knew. The chamber where she’d watched her friends strip Caleb naked, at her urging, then leave him there without a rope to climb out. The chamber where Matthew had to be.
And he was there. After her belly crawl, pushing her backpack along in front of her, she reached the end of the tunnel, and even before she was out of it, her flashlight captured Matthew huddled in a fetal ball, rocking back and forth, whimpering.
Thank God.
“I broke my camera,” he sniffled, as she crawled up to him.
She made a quick assessment and discovered he was fine. Cut up, banged up and bruised. Scared. Cold. But fine. Her response was to grab him up in her arms and simply hold him close. “We’ll get you another one,” she promised, as tears streaked down her cheeks. “We’ll get you another one.”
* * *
He hated it here. Hated the bed, the food, the hospital gown. Most of all, he hated being away from Matthew, but Matthew was back in Marrell, staying with Caleb’s parents, and he didn’t particularly want them bringing him to Helena to see him because right now the way he looked…it would scare the boy. That’s the last thing he wanted to do. Matthew had escaped his fall with only minor injuries, and he didn’t want him subjected to anything more than what he’d already been through.
The irony of it—he hated that cave and everything it stood for. It was that cave where he’d been ruined. Yet it was also that cave that had saved Matthew after he’d fallen. Because it was warmer inside than it was outside. Matthew might have died of exposure all those hours out in the woods without his jacket. But all those hours in the cave had protected him.
“I hear you’re not being the most cooperative patient today,” Leanne said from the doorway.
She’d been in to see him every day, always hesitant, always very quiet, but it was truly the only thing he looked forward to. His body hurt, physical therapy hurt, everything hurt. His bad disposition didn’t help matters either. “I don’t like the food.”
“Or the respiratory therapist, or the cleaning lady, or your bedsheets.”
“They scratch.”
She laughed, even though the look on her face showed clear discomfort. “And you’re going to be in here at least another week, maybe two. So, how’s that going to work?” She put a bag down on his bedside tray, then pulled out containers of soft food. Cottage cheese, applesauce, custard. Nothing that required much chewing as he couldn’t chew yet.
“It’s not. Which is why I’m going home.”
She popped the lids off the food containers and handed him a spoon. “No, you’re not. You need another procedure on your face, or you’re going to end up with a crooked cheekbone. And Sinclair Hospital doesn’t have what you need to rehabilitate that shoulder…again. Besides, Jack Hanson’s staying on for a while, maybe even permanently, to head up a real mountain rescue team. And I’m working there part-time, so we really don’t need you back in any capacity yet. Not that you’re in any shape to come back to work.”
“Like I’m not in any shape to raise a spoon to my mouth,” he said, fighting to tamp down his bad mood. He was angry—so angry with himself for literally climbing too close to the edge. But the closer he’d got, the more memories of that night had bombarded him, and he had been so caught up in those that he’d gotten sloppy. That’s all there was to his fall. He’d got sloppy.
“Is that a hint? You want me to spoon-feed you?” Before he could answer, she spooned out a bit of custard and aimed it at his mouth. “Now, open up…”
“I can feed myself,” he snapped, as he grabbed hold of her wrist to stop her, then realized he didn’t have another hand available to take hold of the spoon, since his entire left arm was splinted against his body.
Leanne laughed. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a situation there.”
“The only situation I’ve got is being here when I don’t want to be.” And memories. Ones he’d successfully pushed aside for so long. Had never put away like Leanne’s had been. More like subdued. But now they had been unleashed, and that night was playing over and over in his mind. He couldn’t stop it. Stripped naked, left there like that, with no way to get out for an entire night and most of the next day.
“I don’t think so,” she said seriously, shaking free of his grip.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to do something I’m not going to like?”
“Because it’s time. Because I remember.” She sighed heavily and shut her eyes. “Because you’re well enough now to listen to me, and I need to talk.” Then she opened her eyes and looked directly into his.
“When did it come back to you, Leanne?” he asked seriously.
“When I thought you were going to die. Funny how that turned out. You said a trauma might have caused my condition, and it was a trauma that cleared it up. I remember what I did. I see it every time I shut my eyes now. I hated you so much…”
“But why?” he asked.
“Because we’d grown apart. Because you’d been the friend I’d counted on until Scott McBriarty stepped in and took my place. Because you replaced me with him the way my dad had replaced me with you.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Leanne walked over to the window, glanced outside at the parking lot, then turned around and sat down on its ledge. “Maybe there’s nothing to say. Still, what you did to me…”
“What I did?” He had no idea what she was talking about. He’d only ever loved her. Even after they’d grown apart. But by then he’d been smart enough to know that guys like him didn’t end up with girls like her. So, trying to stay away from Leanne had been deliberate. But she had always been his flame, and he had always been her moth.
“Being friends with Scott.”
“I wasn’t allowed to have friends? Is that what you’re telling me, Leanne, because I don’t understand.” But there was more. Something she wasn’t telling him. Something that was hurting her. He could see it in her face. And, despite his frustration, all he wanted to do was hold her. Take care of her. Protect her. The same things he’d always wanted. Maybe even when he’d been married to Nancy.
“You laughed at me that night, Caleb. Up at Eagle Pointe. You and Scott. You were whispering back and forth about me, and I couldn’t take it any longer.”
“Take what, Leanne?”
“The fact that you continued to be his friend after he…” She stopped, shut her eyes, then rubbed her forehead. “After he attacked me.”
“What?” Caleb nearly screamed.
“That night, when you asked me to meet you at Miller’s Pond. I went, Caleb, because I missed you. I didn’t care that you were geeky. I didn’t care about anything except…you. But you were the one who walked away from our friendship. And, yes, it made me angry. So, I snubbed you, and made fun of you because I was hurt. It’s the way a kid acts. All emotion, no real thought. But when you left that message in my school locker…all I wanted was to go out there like we used to do and skip rocks. I wanted us to be friends again.”
“But you didn’t come. Instead, you sent Scott to tell me you had other plans.”
“I never asked you, Leanne. I swear…” His stomach was starting to churn as bad images began barraging him. And he was starting to sweat.
“But I had the note, and I thought you had. When Scott showed up, though…” She let out a heavy sigh. “He was pretty high. Acting crazy. Being rude. So, all I wanted to do was get away from him, get away from what I thought you’d done to me. Which was what I did. Scott suggested I stay out there with him for a little while, but I said no. He was a bad kid, Caleb. You weren’t. Not until him.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself. “You hurt me. You shut me out. First my dad, then you. And there was no one else…”
“I shut you out because I knew the end of the story. Little-kid dreams turning into a reality that was nothing like they’d planned. I watched you, Leanne. You shone. People loved you. You had friends. Maybe not the kind you wanted but you were always surrounded by people who admired you, while I had a group of misfits just like me who nobody wanted around.”
“But I did, Caleb. I always did. And that night, when I had so many hopes, Scott turned up…”
“What did he do to you?”
“He tried to rape me,” she said without emotion. “Then after that, every time I saw you two together…”
His head was pounding now. Everything was finally making sense, yet nothing was making sense. “But he didn’t…”
“Not rape, no. But he did molest me. Ripped off some of my clothes. Touched me.” She grimaced, shut her eyes, shuddered. “Shoved me down, got on top of me…”
“Oh, God,” Caleb moaned. Of all the things he’d imagined that might have caused her amnesia, this had never been one of them.
“What he didn’t know, though, was that Jack Hanson had been working with me. I was strong. I fought back.” She opened her eyes and looked straight at Caleb. “But I thought you knew what he’d done because of the way you two would look at me after that. Best friends talk, or brag. I was sure he had.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“Probably for the same reasons that over sixty percent of all sexual assaults on women go unreported. Some say it may be as high as ninety. I wasn’t even a woman when it happened to me. I had no one to turn to. No one to talk to. So, it just went away. Got stowed in a place where I could go on without having to deal with it. That place you’re calling childhood traumatic amnesia. At least, that’s what I think happened. I’m going to need more professional help to sort it.”
What could he say? What could he do? Other than to fight back the rising nausea, he didn’t know. “So why me? Why did I become your target?”
“Probably because I thought you were betraying me by being friends with someone who’d attacked me. I mean, that’s part of what I must sort out. But that night, up at Eagle Pointe, when you two were staring at me, laughing…” She moved closer to the bed but stayed at an arm’s length. “I snapped, Caleb. That’s all I could think. That you knew, and you were laughing about it.”
“But I didn’t, Leanne, or I’d have—”
“I know you didn’t. I know that now. But I was a kid. I didn’t know how to deal with what happened to me, and all I could see was that the one person I could have turned to had chosen to be friends with my attacker. Which was why I did what I did to you that night. I wanted you to feel exactly how I’d felt that night Scott attacked me, ripped off half my clothes and tried to…”
“Were you the one who sent help out to get me the next day?” he asked, wishing to God he could get out of bed, hold her, do something other than lie there and watch her suffer. But he couldn’t. Not with the IVs and splints… And he felt like hell for being so helpless.
“I was. Because despite it all… I loved you.” She brushed away the tears streaming down her face. “Always have.”
The words were barely out of her mouth. And all he could hear were the screams. His screams. Screaming for the things he didn’t know. For the things he did.
And for Leanne. Mostly for Leanne.
* * *
Hours later—at least it seemed like hours later when, in fact, it had probably only been a little while—Leanne emerged from the hospital bathroom, cold water still splashed on her face, wondering what came next. Caleb hadn’t spoken, not even when half the hospital staff had run into the room to see what was wrong with him. They were gone now, the door was shut, and it was just the two of them. Alone. Together. And she knew she didn’t want to go on with this, but she also knew she couldn’t stop. Not now. Not until everything was said. Because she remembered, every detail…every second of that horrible ordeal.
“I don’t blame you for that, Caleb. At least, I don’t anymore.” He turned his head away from her but, not to be daunted, she sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. Reached over and took hold of his hand. “It’s a mess. I’m a mess. You’re a mess. And we’ve got a lot to work through. But the one thing I know, the one thing I’m sure of now, is that you couldn’t have known what he did to me. Back then I thought you did. But you weren’t like that. At least, not until I bullied you into doing things you wouldn’t have normally done. Things to hurt you and humiliate you. Because I felt hurt and humiliated.”
“That day, when they brought me out of the cave…” He still refused to look at her. “Half the town turned up to watch. They were making fun of me, Leanne. Saying terrible things. And all I wanted to do was go and hide somewhere.”
“I know,” she said, raising her hand to brush his cheek. “At least, now I know. Back then, though…” She swallowed hard. “And after you took it out on half the windows in town, and they arrested you…it didn’t make me happy, Caleb. Didn’t give me the satisfaction I wanted. In fact, that’s why I left Marrell shortly after. Because I did remember that night. The look on your face. Up until you fell off the cliff last week, that’s the only thing I remembered. And I wanted to run away from it. Not from being molested. From what I’d done to you.” With the back of her hand she swiped at the tears streaking down her cheeks, then continued. “I didn’t know you would go off the deep end the way you did. If I’d been older, or smarter, I would have figured it out, but I wasn’t, and…” She sniffed. “The trauma that brought about my amnesia wasn’t about what Scott did to me, Caleb. It was about what I did to you.”
All she could feel was despair, and loathing for the things she’d done. And an overwhelming sadness for the grief she knew Caleb must be going through now, and what she’d put him through back then. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I loved you, Caleb. Like I said before back then. Even now. It’s never changed for me, even though I didn’t remember it. But when I did…”
She waited for Caleb’s response, but when it didn’t come she finally stood, reconciled to what would come next. And she couldn’t blame him. She’d been a lonely girl who’d latched onto a lonely boy, and nothing had worked out. She was still lonely, lonelier than she’d ever been in her life. But Caleb had Matthew now, and she was glad for him. He deserved some happiness, and she was truly happy he’d found it. Caleb was a wonderful man. The love of her life, she was coming to realize. The one she’d never get over, and she wanted nothing but good things for him.
“I’m so sorry for what I did. Sorry that I didn’t remember. Sorry for things I probably haven’t even made sense of yet. I know you’re not going to want to have anything to do with me now, and I don’t blame you, because I don’t want anything to do with myself either. But for what it’s worth, you’re the person I always knew you would be. A good man. A kind man. A man who didn’t deserve to be hurt.” He was also the person she had loved since she was five years old. And would always love.
She pushed the door open and started out into the hall, but stopped to take one final look back at him, only to find him looking at her.
“Would you report him now?” he asked simply.
“Does it matter, after all this time? They won’t prosecute him. It’s been too long.”
“Yes, it matters. Because even if all you get to do is press charges, his crime will no longer be a secret, and maybe he’ll lose some of that charmed life he lives. Or maybe someone else he might have done that to will fall within the legal time limit to prosecute and come forward. Most of all, though, it lets you move on. You didn’t cause it, you didn’t deserve it, and this finishes it.”
“Except for more counseling.” She sighed. “It would be nice knowing that he knows he didn’t get away with it. Or that he won’t get away with it in the future, if he’s inclined to do it to someone else.”
“Or just to get even,” Caleb said, finally giving over to a smile. “You deserve your right in this, Leanne. And even if that right is only some self-satisfaction, it belongs to you, if you want it to.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked. “I don’t deserve it.”
“What you don’t deserve is what Scott did to you, and all the trauma that came afterward. You’re not to blame here. Neither am I. We were young, we didn’t know…” He held out his hand to her. “We didn’t have each other to help get us through it.”
“You were always my knight in shining armor, because you were a dreamer, you know. Because you dreamed the dreams I wanted, and believed. Sure, they were little-kid dreams, but to a little kid they offered so much hope and promise when the rest of her world just wasn’t working out. And, Caleb, I never saw you as odd or different. All I saw was…my friend. My one true friend.”
“Until I wasn’t.”
“Until you weren’t.”
“I’m sorry for what Scott did to you. Sorry I couldn’t defend you, because I would have.”
She walked back over to him and took his hand. “I know you would.”
“So, what about us?” he asked. “Can we work it out? Maybe come out on the other end with that dream we shared?”
“Would there ever be a possibility that you could trust us? Or trust me?” she asked honestly.
“When I first arrived, and knew you’d be here, too, I didn’t want anything to do with you. Didn’t want someone like you being around my son. But you weren’t…you. At least, not the one you turned into. You were more like the Leanne I knew when I was a child. But I didn’t trust that. Couldn’t. Because I was the one who did remember. Except I never factored myself into that equation. But I was there, Leanne. So, could I trust us? Or you? The answer is yes. I could, and I do. Although we’re going to need help getting through it. If you want to get through it…with me.”
“I do,” she said. “For you, for me, for Matthew. I want us.”
“But that means Marrell. Can you live with that?”
“Being in love changes everything. Didn’t you say something to that effect once?”
“So, how, in any fairy tale ever told, does the ugliest, geekiest kid in town end up with the prettiest, most popular girl?”
“They say love is blind,” she said.
He chuckled. “No way in hell it could be that blind.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I never saw ugly or geeky back then, and I sure don’t now.” Not that looks mattered, because they didn’t. Maybe that was looking through the eyes of love, maybe it was what he’d turned into. Or had always been. She didn’t know, she didn’t care. “Now tell me, what do we do next?”
“Could we start again, please? Go back to when we were five and six?”
“We could, but then we…you wouldn’t have Matthew.”
“I like it better when you say we.”
“So do I. When you called and told me he was missing… I was so scared. For him, for you… All I could think about was how wonderful it felt having two people in my life I loved more than life itself, and how one of them was in danger. Those were agonizing hours, Caleb. I know they were for you, but they were for me, too.” She swiped back her tears. “I knew when I went back to Seattle that I loved you, but coming back here, for Matthew…that’s when I knew how much.”
He sniffed, fighting back his own tears. “We are a mess, aren’t we?”
“We are. But I think it’s a mess we can straighten out, if you want to. But you must be the one to say you want to, because I’ve been standing here with my heart on my sleeve for quite a while now, and I haven’t seen your heart yet. And I have to see it.”
“You are my heart, Leanne. Always have been, even though I took some odd paths to get to where I could say that to you.”
“Then we have our beginning, don’t we?” she asked.
“We do,” he said.
“We do,” she repeated, sitting back down on the side of the bed with him. “But I also want you to bring Matthew home to live with us, let him commute to school even though Hans Schilling has bumped up security in huge ways. Matthew’s part of that beginning, and I want us to be a family, together. I want to work part-time, help raise Matthew, take care of you…especially take care of you. If I’m lucky, give Matthew a brother or sister. Let you run the hospital, which was always my plan in the first place.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me.” He pointed to the corner of his mouth. “Any plans for that particular spot?”
“Maybe,” she said, bending in to give him a light kiss.
He scooted up in bed a little, taking care not to injure his shoulder. Then pointed to the other corner of his mouth. “More plans here?”
She obliged him with another light kiss.
“Maybe right there?” he pointed to a spot on his forehead, but when she kissed it, he sucked in a sharp breath and nearly recoiled from the pain. “OK, try there.” He pointed to another spot on his face. Same pain reaction when she kissed him, though. Then he blew out a frustrated breath, reached out, pulled her face to his and kissed her hard, the way he wanted to. The way she deserved to be kissed. To hell with the pain.
“Didn’t that hurt?” she asked, when he finally dropped back into his pillow, his expression caught somewhere between agony and ecstasy.
“Worth it,” he managed to gasp. “Totally worth it. Now, would you call the nurse and ask her to bring me a pain pill?”