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CALEB used his arm to brace Perkins as he made a sharp right onto Riverside Drive. He looked at his badly beaten passenger, knowing the Coesen needed medical attention or he wasn’t going to survive the night. As if to confirm his assessment, Perkins coughed and blood sprayed over the passenger side window and door.
“You need a doctor,” Caleb said. He’d been driving for over an hour, trying to put as much distance between him and New Orleans as he could. “I know someone in Biloxi.” Caleb merged onto Interstate 110 South.
Sometime later, Caleb drove down a dark street and pulled into a parking pad that grass had grown over long ago. He looked at an adjacent house that seemed out of place. It was a three-story home with clean siding and a new roof. It looked like it was an office and a home at one time but was just a home now.
The neighboring homes on either side of the renovated house were ranch style homes that were in great disrepair, although they both seemed to be occupied.
Caleb carried Perkins to the side door of the out-of-place home where he knew the clinic entrance was located, and knocked hard five times. A minute or so later, he heard the familiar sound of a friend’s voice from behind the door.
“Randall?” the woman gasped. Caleb nodded and she slowly pulled the door open. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes moved from Caleb to Perkins, who lay still over Caleb’s shoulder. “What’s going on?” she asked drowsily.
“I need your help, Silvia,” Caleb said calmly.
***
SILVIA closed the door behind her. She didn’t look at the man she once considered her friend as she moved around him and over to the cabinet. It’s been six years since she last saw Randall. That last day they met for lunch like they did so many times before. They talked and ate just as they always did. Nothing special happened, just two friends in the hospital café, though their friendship did raise some eyebrows.
At the time, Silvia was a doctor and the wife of the great Nathan Franks, who was the head of the surgery department and a force to be reckoned with. He was an arrogant, nasty man who accepted no excuses from any of his employees or coworkers. His demeanor and Silvia’s quiet nature limited her from making many friends. The only person who didn’t fear her husband was Randall Smith, a janitor who happened to speak to a lonely woman who looked like she needed a kind word, he later told her.
“Your friend will be fine but I don’t think he should be moved. You can see him now,” Silvia told him. It took three hours to get the beaten man stable. She walked over to a cabinet, looking over at Randall as she placed some items in inside. “You look younger,” she said under her breath, “but it’s you,” she said, staring for a moment before turning back to the cabinet.
“It’s me. How are you, Silvia?” he asked.
“Right now, or are you asking about the last six years?” She picked up what she needed and turned around. She looked straight ahead so she didn’t have to see his face.
“My intent wasn’t to hurt you, Silvia.”
“You had intentions, Randall? You mean to tell me you actually planned to not hurt me? I suppose leaving with not even a goodbye or a, hey Silvia I don’t think our...” She choked on her tears. “Friendship is beneficial to me any longer but I’m too much of a shithead to tell you face to face.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. He moved to the edge of the chair he sat in. “You were starting to-”
“To what Randall? Feel something for you? God forbid anyone in the world ever have feelings for Randall Smith.” She couldn’t hold back the tears as she walked by him.
“I believe your God has forbade that a long time ago,” he said.
God, she was a fool. She wanted to kick herself for being so emotional. Especially because he seemed so unfazed by the way his absence, or his resurfacing, affected her.
“You should know my name isn’t really Randall. It’s Caleb Scott.”
“Oh great,” she said then smiled bitterly as she turned and looked at him with contempt, “you’re a shithead and a liar.” Silvia bundled the items in her arms as she walked out of the side door that led outside, leaving him alone in the clinic lobby.
***
CALEB tapped on the door that said Exam Room 1, unmoved by the conversation. He didn’t wait for Perkins to say come in. He entered the room and pulled a chair up to the side of the bed. Perkins lay still at first as if he was sleeping but he let his head fall to the side to look at Caleb.
“You didn’t kill her, did you?” Perkins slurred. His lips were unnaturally swollen and had a deep cut that ran through the center.
Caleb felt his jaw tick as the sudden urge to snap Perkins’ neck pulsed through him. He took some air into his lungs, his movements so calculated and subtle that no one would be able to ascertain his irritation. He was an expert at hiding his emotions but over the years he hadn’t had to hide them. He virtually buried them so deep that he didn’t have to.
Now emotion, and feelings he long thought were dead were again surfacing. He heard Richard in his head again, “You are personally vested.”
He was.
Caleb swallowed a curse as he pulled a cloth from his pocket. He unfolded the cloth and held up what he showed Zeta to gain her loyalty.
Perkins looked at the familiar necklace that dangled from Caleb’s hand. He focused on the clear marquise shaped stone with a thin platinum band that wrapped around it two full times. Perkins sighed. When he spoke again it was with more difficulty. “Do you know who did it?”
Caleb placed the necklace around his own neck. “Don’t talk, just think of what you want me to hear and I will hear you,” he told Perkins. Perkins shook his head. “As for your question,” Caleb said, “No, I don’t but I will. My search led me to Zuri. I gather yours did too?”
“Yes,” Perkins thought. His right eye closed due to reflexes as he thought the word. The left eye was beaten closed. It seemed that Zuri’s men were partial to that side of his face. “It took me seven weeks to track him down; to end up with nothing.” He sighed.
Caleb was also upset about the outcome. The henchman he questioned was just a stooge. He knew nothing and just took orders blindly like a minion should. “Zuri killed himself to protect someone,” Caleb said. He looked Perkins over. “You don’t have to listen to me but I think it’s best if you stay here a while, let Dr. Franks look after you until you’re on your feet. If someone’s looking, they won’t find you here.”
Perkins hissed in a breath through his swollen lips. “Soahn Harper trusted you, so I will trust you as well.”
***
The Cabin
TRISTAN stepped out of his room and into the kitchen with a smile on his face. Zeta hadn’t left the room for a day and a half, despite his apologies and all his begging. He was an emotional wreck because of what he did. So, when he heard movement in the kitchen he thought that she finally forgave him, but it wasn’t Zeta in the kitchen.
“You can wipe that smile from your face,” Caleb said. “The fact that you couldn’t tell from my footsteps who it was in this kitchen is pathetic.”
Tristan winced.
“I hope you didn’t do anything stupid to the girl,” Caleb said, giving him a hard stare. Then he dug in a brown paper bag and pulled out two more items and placed them in the cabinet.
Tristan leaned back on the wall outside his bedroom but didn’t speak.
“I never understood it when a man says he has no idea that a woman has feelings for him.” Caleb turned and looked at him.
Tristan lifted his hanging head, confused by Caleb’s comment. Then it was clear to him. Zeta was so upset with him because she actually felt more for him than just sexual attraction. To her, that kiss was probably a slap in the face and not a harmless attempt to get free. As he looked over at Caleb, his shame turned into anger. The bastard knew how Zeta felt.
“You’re to blame for all of this,” Tristan said bitterly. “If I was home with my wife and children, I wouldn’t have hurt her.”
Caleb said nothing. His smug devil-may-care attitude was pissing Tristan off. Frustrated and angry, he roared his emotions to the ceiling. He was so loud the beams shook.
Caleb looked over at him. A flicker of interest covered the man’s face for a moment then it was a mask of stoicism. “If you refocus that power and use that emotion you’re feeling as a base, no one will be your equal.”
Tristan was tired, tired of it all. “What do I have to do to prove that I am no longer the weak link you think I am?”
Caleb unloaded the rest of the groceries. “When nothing can stop you from walking out that door, you can leave.”
Finally, a clear answer.
If that was all it took, then fine, Tristan pushed off the wall and walked over to the front door and opened it. He knew his limit was the threshold but he was determined to cross it. He raised his foot up and over the doorsill, overlooking the familiar tingling climbing up his leg. His body stiffened as electricity began to course through him. He leaned forward. Tristan clinched his fist and leaned his head back as his body pulsed with more pain.
He didn’t know how long he stood with one foot out of the door and the other foot in but he knew it was a new record as he felt himself losing consciousness. Tristan pulled his foot inside. He looked over at Caleb, who was now seated on the sofa eating fruit.
Tristan smiled. He didn’t pass out. He never lasted over thirty seconds. “I’m not going to be here too much longer,” he said confidently, so you might want to finish up that story of yours.”
***
CALEB raised a brow. He liked the kid more and more as the days passed. “Right,” he chuckled, as he recalled where he left off in his life story. “Small patches of the fields were still smoldering when the sun came up and my neighbors, who’d come to help, began to take their leave. There was nothing more anyone could do.
“Eighty percent of the crop was destroyed. No one knew for sure who was responsible though several men were seen riding away from Maiden Hall after the fire started. But I knew, and I was determined to make them pay.”
“And, Marda?” Tristan plopped down in the chair next to the sofa.
Caleb could see the electric charge had exhausted him but Tristan would never admit it. Although he could tell the little stunt did drain him, Caleb was impressed.
“Marda was safe.” He sighed with relief as if reliving that day again. “When the fire began she and some of the suckling women gathered the children in the safety of the chapel.
***
Maiden Hall Plantation
Early morning after the blaze of 1826
THE sound of the bell that alerted the slaves to begin their work would not be heard as it had been for over twenty years. The overseer’s call would not be heard either. The once-bustling plantation looked as if it had been abandoned. Most everyone was inside the dwellings, tired from fighting the fire, tending wounds, or helping with the young, animal and humans alike. Some of the slave quarters burned when the fire spread but most still stood.
Alone, Caleb walked the fields, noting the damage. He stood looking out over what was left of his crop in disbelief and shock when movement to his left caught his attention. Caleb moved faster than he should have, crossing the distance in a flash. He was able to make out her scent, even over the rotted stench of cindering fields.
“You should not be out. Those men may still be on the property,” he said to Marda as he stood over her bent form.
Marda looked up at him. On his face, his emotions lay bare for all to see. His anger, his hurt. She looked at what was left of the plants then looked at him as if she wanted to...as if she was sad for him.
“You never asked me what my gift is,” she said, looking down at her hands. Marda slowly placed them flat on the healthy grass just beyond the fire's reach. She closed her eyes and exhaled.
Confused, Caleb watched her. Nothing happened at first then he saw what looked like seedlings crawl up from the charred ground. The seedlings turned into leaves in a matter of seconds. Then blossoms appeared, then an open boll. Twenty-five weeks of nature happened in under a minute.
“How?” Caleb asked, astonished by what he just witnessed. It was as if all he’d come to know as a Protector never happened and the Coesen world was new.
“I can bring it all back for you.” She closed her eyes again and an entire row of mature cotton sprang up from the once burnt ground. “I am what my people call an Engron. I am able to will the growth of living things.” She opened her eyes and looked at him.
Caleb’s attention was on the row of cotton that was just right for the picking. “Make it go away,” he demanded when he looked at her. His face hardened and his eyes were fierce.
“I can fix it all, for you, Caleb.”
Marda placed her other hand on the mound of dirt to her left but Caleb kneeled down in front of her. He grabbed her left hand and pulled it away from the mound.
“You must hear me. What you can do, what you have made possible for me, is miraculous,” he told her, “but it’s something we need to keep hidden. People do not accept what they choose not to understand. If this crop returns after so many have seen it burn, someone will be held responsible for what will be viewed as witchery, instead of a miracle. Return it as it was, Marda. Return it now.”
As they stared intensely at each other, Marda slowly slid her hand from his and placed it back on the mound of dirt where the cotton stalks were growing. She reversed the process so the plush cotton was instantly returned to burnt twigs then ash.
“Now, I have much to do and little time to do it, so if you could return to the house and gather what you hold dear.” He stood then pulled Marda to her feet.
It took only a few minutes for Marda to reappear, carrying a sack. Caleb wasn’t privy to what the sack contained but he would bet she carried the two books his mother gave her soon after she arrived at Maiden Hall.
Caleb waited outside in a horse-drawn wagon. When Marda slowly approached, he got down and took her sack. He helped her up in the wagon and placed her sack beside her. He signaled for the horse to go after taking a seat next to the sack.
Neither of them spoke as the horse galloped to their destination. Caleb didn’t tell Marda where they were going and she didn’t ask. Instead she rocked with the wagon in silence, looking over at him in the large hat he wore every so often.
Once within city limits, Caleb felt the fear that rose in Marda trickle over him but he didn’t stop. Minutes later, he pulled the wagon on the side of a building with a sign that read Scott’s General Store.
Inside one of the rooms over the store that Caleb used when he stayed with his uncle, he sat Marda on the bed. “You rest here. I will not be gone long,” Caleb said to her.
He turned to his uncle, who waited just outside the door. Caleb hurried out of the room, pulling his uncle with him before shutting the door.
“What is going on Caleb?” his uncle asked.
Caleb rushed down the stairs. His uncle followed close behind. They moved through the empty store to the back room. Only then did he stop and turn toward his uncle. “Watkins sent his men to torch the crops last night.”
“Is everyone ok?”
“There were a few injuries but everyone lives.” Caleb pulled the door open but turned back and grabbed his relation by the shoulders. “I need her safe, Uncle. You are the only person here that I trust. Promise me you will send her to my mother in London if I should not return.”
His Uncle nodded. “Tell no one I was here.” His Uncle nodded again. Caleb relaxed then gave a nod of his own before he left the way he’d come.
He was outside of Broken Nail Tavern a few minutes later. Being Sunday, the place was closed but Caleb had no problem slipping inside. None of the usual goons stood outside of Bill’s office so Caleb pushed the door open with no resistance.
Inside, lying with his upper body sprawled out on his desk with a dangerously low bottle of whiskey inches from his hands, was Bill. Caleb strode over to the desk, gripped Bill’s hair in his fist and raised the inebriated man’s head so they were eye to eye.
“I told ‘em not ta do it,” Bill slurred as he focused on Caleb. “That you ain’t right.”
Caleb let go of his hold on Bill’s head and watched it sway until Bill gained some sort of control. “I warned ‘em. You ain’t right boy,” he repeated.
It was true. Caleb heard Bill Marshall tell Watkins on several occasions to “steer clear of that boy”. At first Caleb thought the man’s constant obstruction was due to him being of a fine home and his gentleman status but later realized that Bill feared him. After each seemingly unwinnable victory, Bill was always watching. Caleb was certain Bill knew nothing, but the man sensed enough to always place money on him to win.
...and Caleb always won.
“Is he home?” Caleb pressed.
Bill fell back, rocking the chair on its back legs before stabilizing himself. The entire time his eyes stayed glued to Caleb. “My mother’s mother, she was Cherokee and spoke of dark spirits. Boy, you have the darkest spirit I’ve ever seen in a man.”
Caleb was astonished that Bill thought his spirit was darker than Watkins’, a double-dealing murderer who would slit his own parents’ throats for a nickel. He mentally shrugged. “Then you know to not deny me.”
Bill nodded and the movement almost knocked him off the chair. “Then,” he said, then sighed, “the unlucky bastard is indeed at his home.”
Before Bill could finish, Caleb was gone.
The two-story brick house was located on the outskirts of town in an affluent neighborhood with big townhouses and large plots of grass located in the front and sometimes in the rear of the homes. The sun was higher by the time Caleb got there but neither of the two fireplaces in the home smoked.
All the homes on the Exeter Street were in the midst of their morning bustle while only one room was lit up at the Watkins home. Caleb had been inside the office many times and knew that on Sundays, Watkins gave his slaves the morning to themselves while he conducted his business.
Again, no one saw him as he entered the residence. Casually, he walked through the kitchen, past the servant’s rooms to a small entry hall that led to the office. Caleb heard the conversation from inside the closed room as soon as he entered the townhouse but now he was close enough to distinguish that there were four voices. It would have been easier to match the voices to the person if he wasn’t drunk most of the time when in the presence of the men he now stalked.
What he did know was, Watkins was inside. Wherever the boss was, Jack and Ben were. So, he had the identity of three of the men. The fourth voice was a bit of a mystery. Caleb pushed the door open.
“Mr. Scott,” Watkins said then smiled. “What do I owe the pleasure?”
Caleb moved his gaze over the interior of the room, resting briefly on the newcomer in Watkins’ company. He saw Ned only a time or two but didn’t know him like he knew the other three.
“The little matter of my fields burning,” Caleb said as he entered the room.
Knowing your opponent was the first lesson he learned. He walked slowly over to stand in front of Watkins’ desk, sweeping a glance at each man. He was compounding information such as, Ben carried two guns and a large knife. Jack carried one gun, a thick metal pole, and a thin wire for strangling his victims. Watkins didn’t carry any weapons, other than his forked tongue. Ned was a fighter.
“Yes...well, that was unfortunate. I am sure you are relieved that it wasn’t the Manor that went up in flames instead.” Watkins smiled like he was holding a winning hand.
Caleb narrowed his eyes and balled his fist at the threat as a flood of adrenalin pumped through his veins. Ben tensed and Jack reached into his pocket; preparing his strangling wire, was Caleb’s guess. Ned and Watkins didn’t move.
“I can offer my protection against those kinds of mishaps, for you and your family, if you should decide to come to work for me again.”
Ben must have been holding his breath because he exhaled when Caleb relaxed. The tension in Jack’s hands released as well.
“If you offer your protection for me and mine, then who will be protecting you?” Caleb asked as he moved with blinding speed to Ben’s side then to Jack’s back. Caleb was suddenly back in front of Watkins’ desk, the spot he was in before he moved, with a look of pure hatred on his face. Ben’s and Jack’s bodies were slumped to the floor where they stood.
One punch to Ben’s heart and it stopped cold. Strangling Jack would have been poetic but Caleb wasn’t in the mood to play with them.
Ned raised his gun at the same moment Caleb turned and rushed him. Ned flinched as he clumsily pulled the trigger of the gun he pressed into Caleb’s shoulder.
Damn, that burned.
But the pain was bearable. Caleb grabbed the warm barrel of the gun, snatched it free and tossed it before he slammed his head into Ned’s face so hard his teeth ached from the sound of the cracking bone.
Caleb lowered his head and listened for any sounds outside of the office. The only sound he heard was the drumming of Watkins’ heart and the short intake of the man’s breath.
“I came here with the intent to appeal to your humanity. You are void of even the smallest amount. I was willing to overlook it and your blatant disregard for my property, and permit you to live,” Caleb said, looking over his shoulder. He let Ned’s body fall from his grasp as he turned and made his way to the desk. “But you threatened my family.”
Watkins, frozen by the events that unfolded, was frantically pushing away from the desk. Sweat covered his brow and his heart rate sped up. “What...what the hell are you?”
“To you...I am death.” Caleb smiled, as he moved forward.
***
CALEB climbed the stairs with silent speed even though the ride from Maidan Hall had the injury to his shoulder aching. He shouldn’t have come, but the pain in his chest ached more. As he stood with his hand on the knob he reminded himself that this was a bad idea. The woman on the other side of the door would be better off without him.
The night he killed Watkins and his men he told himself that he would let her go. He was a murderer, and Bill Marshall aimed to prove it by hiring a lawman named Benton. Caleb spoke with Benton two days past and it seemed he managed to convince the man he had no information to help solve the murders, but Caleb needed to be careful.
Being careful meant not going to Marda.
After he murdered those men, he went back to Maiden Hall and sent word to his Uncle to purchase Marda passage to London.
Caleb just got word that she didn’t accept. He planned to stay away until she came to her senses but his resolve weakened with each passing day.
Until...
Caleb opened the door without making a sound but Marda must have sensed his presence because she whipped her head around and stared at him. God. Her long hair flowed freely down her back like black silk. Her sleep gown was thin enough to see her comely figure beneath. Her face glowed with an ease he never saw before.
When their eyes met, Marda threw the book she held to the floor, jumped off the bed, then wrapped her arms around his waist and lowered her head on his chest. Taken off guard, Caleb wrestled with the idea of embracing her but felt it was useless to fight one’s heart.
He slid his arm around her waist, brushing his hand over her hair and bracing her back with his other hand. Caleb didn’t know why she ran to him but with her soft body pressed against his, he didn’t care.
“You’re bleeding.” Marda gasped as she pulled away.
Caleb was reluctant to let her out of his arms but he forced himself on her enough. She took his hand in hers. His chest tightened from the casual contact as she led him over to the bed and had him sit.
“Please, sir,” she said as she wet the cloth in the basin near the bed, “Undo your garments.”
Caleb unbuttoned then shrugged out of his carrier’s bag, waistcoat, and shirt. When Marda turned to face him, her eyes inspected his naked chest thoroughly, invoking his body’s natural response to such attention.
He shifted to hide his engorged appendage.
“I’m fine, really,” he said. But when she began to undo the bloody bandage Barkly placed over the bullet wound, he bit down on his tongue and forced a moan. No, he wasn’t beyond faking discomfort for the pleasure of her touch.
“Did they do this to you?”
She didn’t look up when she asked the question, which made him sigh with frustration. Her tone let nothing slip and he needed to see her expression to gauge his next move, but her hair hid her face.
He was about to answer her question when her hand caressed his shoulder. The gentle touch made his shaft twitch and took his breath away, making it impossible to respond verbally. Caleb managed a nod.
“Will they be able to hurt anyone else?” Marda lifted her head then. Those soft brown eyes of hers were waiting for his response.
Caleb knew what she asked and he wanted to lie, to tell her that they still lived, but when he opened his mouth he simply said, “No.”
To his amazement, she blinked then gave him a solemn smile of understanding. It was as if she knew he didn’t want their deaths but felt it had to be done.
“May I?” she asked as her hand continued to caress his shoulder.
Caleb’s brows furrowed.
She looked at his wound. “May I, stop the bleeding.”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. He wanted her to know he trusted her with his life.
“Because we were separated and didn’t sync well, you’re not healing as you should.” Marda smiled at him before placing her lips to his wounded shoulder.
The sudden feel of her soft lips on his sensitive skin sent a shock through him like nothing he ever felt. Pleasure and pain ripped through his body at the same time as his wound merged closed. It was the very definition of what he endured since realizing he was lost in love with her.
After the burn of her kiss subsided, Caleb leaned back he said, “I did not know your lips could heal.”
“They cannot,” she said, smiling seductively.
They were only inches apart but he fought the urge to close the distance and suck her bottom lip into his mouth.
“I can regenerate the living tissue, but the pain and soreness of the injury will continue through the natural stages of healing. Though, because you are my Protector, the process will be much quicker than that of an average man. My lips have no more power than my hands,” she said sucking in the bottom one briefly. “I just chose to use them instead.”
Caleb wondered if it should bother him that she was attracted to him sexually. It was clear the night he took her, she wanted his body just as much as he wanted hers. But he selfishly wanted more and it seemed she wanted only the physical. Sex was what men always wanted, the physical. Should he be offended that she wanted to use him in the same way?
Can I live with that?
No, he couldn’t.
“Why are you not on the ship?”
She sat back on her knees gazing back up at him. Her innocence, beauty, and gentleness overwhelmed him to the point of insanity.
“I go where you go, sir. I am yours,” Marda said, confused.
Caleb closed his eyes briefly, in an attempt to calm himself. Given the chance, would he urge her to stay with him? “Marda,” he reached for his bag, “you are your own person. I have set all the others free. The ones who chose to stay on at Maiden Hall will be paid a wage, secretly of course. They have been given their papers. I hold yours.” Caleb pulled carefully folded papers from his bag. He reached for her hand and placed the papers in them.
***
MARDA looked down at the papers she held in her hand. Finally, she held her freedom in her hands. When she looked back at Caleb, she couldn’t stop the moisture building in her eyes. She expected to shed tears of happiness once this day came.
Only her tears weren’t from being deliriously happy. Her tears were from her heart that was now shattering in a million pieces. Shattering because she was free of the man she just recently realized she loved.
