by Ciana Stone
“I hear you.” Brody pulled her into his embrace. She was right. They needed to act and soon. He wasn’t going to lose Trina. He couldn’t.
Trina was tired by the time everyone started to leave Mathias’ house. She noticed Mathias, Deacon and Brody off to one side talking but didn’t interrupt. Instead, she walked out onto the front porch with Mica.
“I’ve been wanting to get a moment alone with you,” Mica said.
“Oh?”
“I want you to know that I love Deacon with all my heart, and I’m so glad you’re back in his life. I’ll never try to come between the two of you.”
“I know.” Trina offered her hand.
Mica looked at it, hesitated only briefly and took it. Trina looked into Mica’s eyes and felt the past rise, felt Mica’s hidden pains and saw her unswerving devotion to Mathias and her genuine love for Deacon.
“Don’t take it,” Mica said.
“No?”
“No. My pain is a reminder of how blessed I am now. I never want to forget.”
“You’re a wonderful woman,” Trina said and hugged Mica. “I’m so glad we’re family.”
“So, am I.” Mica returned the hug and when they parted she smiled, but it vanished quickly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m tired.”
“No, it’s more than that. Please, maybe I can help.”
“I wish. It’s… I need to go. Please, can you get Brody?”
“Sure. Here.” She took Trina’s arm and led her to the steps. “Sit right here. I’ll be quick.”
It was only a matter of seconds before Mica returned. Everyone was with her. Brody immediately took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Are you okay?”
“I–" She looked around and decided that if she really thought of the people present as family, she had to stop lying. “No. It’s Sadie. She’s fighting me and she’s getting stronger, Brody. A lot stronger.”
Deacon stepped over to them and put his hand on the side of her face. Trina could feel his presence touching her. “Please, don’t. I can’t let anyone in. If I lower the wall, she could shove through.”
“How much longer can you fight her, Rosebud?”
“Not much longer.”
He looked at Brody. “Take her home. If you need us, call.”
Deacon then gave Trina a tight hug. “I’ll tell Wiley to sleep light. Just in case.”
“Thanks, Dad.” She returned the embrace then moved away.
“Thank you, Mathias. I had more fun than I can ever remember.”
“Any time. If you need me…”
“Thank you. Brody?”
“Yep. Good night everyone.”
He kept his arm around her as he escorted her to the car and helped her inside. Once they were on their way, he looked over at her. “How much longer can you hold her at bay, Red?”
“I don’t know. I wish to God I did, but right now, I just don’t know.”
Neither of them spoke another word the rest of the way back to the cabin. Once they arrived, they went straight inside, and she climbed onto the bed fully dressed. Brody removed her shoes, grabbed a blanket and then lay down with her, covering them both.
“I’m afraid, Brody,” Trina whispered softly.
Brody hugged her tightly to him. “I’ve got you Red. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering if he’d just told her a complete lie.
Just as he felt the heaviness of sleep come over him, pandemonium broke out. The sounds of a door being kicked in, boots on wood and then the sudden blinding as lights appeared in his face.
By then he was on his feet and Trina was sitting on the bed with her back plastered to the headboard as if she wanted to melt into it.
“What do you want?” Brody reached for her and forcibly pulled her from the bed to stand behind him.
“Give us the information, Sadie and we’ll let you live.” A voice said.
“I don’t have it.” She didn’t move from where she stood behind Brody.
“Kill the man.”
“No!” Trina bolted in front of Brody.
“Red no!” Brody grabbed her and suddenly two men, masked and dressed in black jumped him.
He gave it all he had but two more joined in and in seconds he was on the floor with a man on either side of him, each with a foot on his back and the barrel of a weapon against the back of his head.
“Give me what I want.” The voice commanded to Trina.
“I told you, I don’t have it.”
“Then we kill him.”
“No! Please, please, wait. I swear on my life I don’t have the information. And I’m not Sadie. I’m Trina.”
A man stepped forward enough to make himself visible. Dressed entirely in black, his head was covered with a mask. He held something in his hand.
“Then you better let Sadie out because we’re either leaving with the info or we’re leaving you dead on the floor. This detonator will activate the explosive in your neck. I press, and you die. So, information or death. Your choice.”
“But I don’t have it.” She turned her head to look at Brody. “She won’t give it to me. What do I do?”
“Die.” The man said.
“No!” Brody yelled at the same moment the man’s thumb pressed on the detonator. Trina didn’t even have time to scream before there was a horrible pain in her neck. Her mind had just enough time to register that she was being killed before everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-One
She’s gone, Trina. You’ve killed her and now it’s time for me to die as well.
Trina felt emotion swell, guilt warring with relief and her caught between the two, wondering if she would ever escape the darkness or if she’d consigned herself to it for eternity.
I never meant to hurt her, Catherine. Or you. I’m sorry if I caused you suffering.
Oh, Trina, even I understand that I’m just another facet of you. Sadie saw her ending as a death because she didn’t want to just be part of you, she wanted to be the whole of you. I don’t have any such wish. I’m happy to be that part of you that takes pleasure and solace in the silence, in drawing a picture or focusing a camera on a scene. I prefer to be incorporated rather than on my own.
Relief washed through her. Thank you, Catherine. I wish Sadie had been so generous. I really needed the secrets she kept.
But you have them, Trina. Just stop fighting.
Fighting what?
Sadie’s memories. At least that’s how you see them, but, they’re yours so just let yourself remember.
Do you think it’s really that easy?
I do. Now, it’s time for me to go back.
But not die, Catherine.
No, not die. We’ll just be one again, the way we were supposed to be all along.
Trina Rose?
That voice was not one generated within her. It belonged to Wiley. But that wasn’t possible, was it? She was dead. That man had pressed the detonator button. She’d felt the pain and Sadie had died.
Trina Rose?
Wiley?
It’s time to wake up, honey. Come on back. Brody’s about to lose his mind and the rest of us are plenty worried.
I’m trying. I just don’t know how.
Just latch onto my voice, Little Bit.
Okay, I’m holding on. Don’t let go.
Never. Come on now. Open your eyes.
“Red!” Brody’s voice was the first thing she heard and his face the first thing she saw. “Oh God, Red!”
He pulled her up and into his arms. “You scared the hell outta me. I thought I’d lost you.”
“What happened?”
Brody released her, and she looked around. She was in the bedroom of the cabin. Brody sat on one side of her, Wiley on the other. At the foot of the bed stood Deacon, Mathias, JJ, Mason, Grady and a man she was positive she’d never met, but who seemed somehow familiar.
Aside f
rom Brody, they were all dressed in black. Black! “Oh, my God!” She looked around at all of them. “It was you!”
“Yes.” Deacon answered. “Sadie needed to believe you were dying.”
“How do you know that?”
“I told them.” Etta’s voice came from the doorway. Trina looked to see Etta sitting on the small wooden chair by the door. “It’s why everyone rejected your plan. You had to believe it as much as Sadie. I’m sorry we had to put you through that, but it was the only way we knew.”
“Thank you, Etta. It worked. Sadie’s gone. Catherine too.”
“Gone?”
“Well, absorbed I guess is a better word. Back where they belong as part of me but not parts that can function on their own anymore.”
“And the information Sadie kept secret?” Mason asked.
“Oh yes, that. As it turns out, she never had it. You do.”
“I do?”
“Yes. Sadie once gave you a handmade bracelet—some kind of leather and metal band?”
“Yeah, I still have it. It has runes etched into the metal.”
Trina turned to Brody. “Remember the notebook we salvaged from the fire?”
“It’s in the night stand.” He turned, opened the drawer and removed a big zip-lock bag with the damaged notebook inside.
“Give it to Mason, please?” She gave Brody a smile and he rose to do as requested.
“I don’t understand,” Mason said.
“There’s a drawing in the notebook she did since we came here. Of a town. Give it to the CIA. There’s a code in it and once you have the code you can read the runes and the runes tell you what they want to know.”
“I never meant you any harm, Trina. I hope you know that.”
“I do. It’s okay, Mason. I have her memories now and I know she did love you once. And whether you wanted to, you kind of loved her. But she betrayed you with Barush. I know how that had to have hurt. She payed—God knows, we all payed for that—him most of all. But that’s the past and we have to let it go and move forward. I’m hoping we can do that as friends.”
“Me too. Thank you.”
She smiled and turned her attention to the one person in the room she didn’t know. He was tall, easily as tall as Grady and quite well built, as evidenced by the way the black knit shirt stretched over his chest and arms.
He didn’t look military. His hair was thick, honey blonde and brushed his shoulders. “And you. Who are you? You look like a romance version of Tarzan.”
Everyone laughed, Deacon and Wiley most of all. “Tarzan.” Deacon slapped the man on the shoulder. “I think we should have that stick.”
“Screw you, bro.” The man smiled, and Trina was struck by how handsome he was and how much he reminded her of Deacon and Wiley.
“Oh my God!” She looked at Wiley, then back at Deacon and the man. “It’s you! You’re my Uncle Lincoln.”
“Linc, and yes I am.”
“Oh wow,” she put her fingertips over her lips then grinned. “You bought the blacksmith shop in town?”
“Yep.”
“Oh wow.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Deacon asked.
“Because I have an honest to God family. Right here. Oh wow, I think this calls for a celebration.”
“What did you have in mind?” Brody asked.
“How about a big cookout at the lake?”
Brody looked around and received nods and agreement, then took Trina’s hand. “If you’re sure you’re up to it.”
“More than up to it. I’m ready to start my life, Brody. Our life. And I want the first day to be spent with all the people I love. Grady and Mason can call and ask their wives and Mathias can ask Willow and we can all meet.”
“At my house,” Mathias offered.
“You sure?” Brody asked.
“Absolutely,"
“Then I say we all get ready and meet at Mathias’ place at seven,” Deacon said.
“See you then.” Brody said and stepped aside for Trina to run over and hug Deacon.
She looked up at Lincoln. “Can I draw you sometime? You’re gorgeous.”
“Sure, Trina—is that what you want to be called? Everyone seems to have a different name for you.”
“What do I look like to you?”
He studied her face for a moment then smiled. “I’m not sure yet, but it’ll come to me. For now, let’s go with Trina.”
“Sounds good, Linc.” She smiled at him then turned to Wiley who’d walked up beside Linc. “You brought me back. Again.”
“It’s what we do, Little Bit.”
She threw her arms around his neck. “Thanks Dad,” she whispered and felt the shock that ran through him. When he pulled back, she winked at him and after a moment he grinned.
Everyone left, and Brody looked at her. “We have a couple of hours before we have to leave. You want to rest?”
She walked over, pushed him back onto the bed and then climbed on top of him, straddling his body. “The last thing I want to do is rest. I want to celebrate.”
“This is what you call celebrating?” He asked as she started untucking his shirt from his pants.
“It most definitely is.” She paused. “This is our first time, Brody.”
“Not quite—unless- hold on, you don’t remember.”
She laughed and pushed him back down as he was starting to sit. “Oh no. I remember. It’s just that is the first time for us with me being fully me. It’s not Trina and Sadie and Catherine now. It’s just Trina. Red, I mean.”
He grinned at her. “Just everything I’ve dreamed of.”
“Oh, Brody, you’re such a sweet-talker.”
He laughed and rolled her over beneath him. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Red.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Etta walked into the diner and stopped as she saw Trina sitting at the small two-person table at the front window. There was a digital SLR camera on the table, along with a sketchbook.
“Hey, what are you doing in town this early?” She looked down at the partial sketch. “That’s pretty.”
“Thanks. I’m meeting Brody to go over to Lily Matthews’s office. We’re signing a contract with Jayce Weathers to rebuild the lake cottage.”
“That’s fantastic. I hear Lincoln’s moving into the house behind the smithy this week.”
“Yes, Wiley and I were helping the last few days and he’s all set I think—well except for needing new furniture in the house. But he has ordered stuff.”
“You know I really want to give you a bridal shower.”
“Oh, that’s really nice, but I’d really prefer if you’d join me and Mica and Charli and Savannah for a girl’s night—you know, drinks and chick flicks?”
“Oh, count me in. And I better scoot. I’m meeting some of the girls for breakfast. Want to join?”
“I’d love to—another time, maybe?”
“Sure. See you later.”
“Okay.”
Etta hurried over to the two four-person tables that had been pushed together where Cody, Hannah, Savannah, Jolene, Callie and Liz were sitting.
“Okay, you have to tell us. Is that the woman who rented the house from mama and then suddenly moved out after paying the rest of the year’s rent? What happened to her and why did she—”
“Whoa, slow your roll there Turbo.” Etta laughed and sat.
“Yeah, what’s the deal?” Jolene asked.
“Hey look, it’s one of the SEALs from the new center.” Hannah said. “Wow, talk about hot. Oh my God, he’s kissing her.”
Etta looked over her shoulder and waved then turned her attention back to the women at the table. “Okay, curious cats. That’s Trina Johns. She’s Deacon’s daughter and the SEAL is Brody Judge. She’s engaged to him.”
“Deacon has a daughter?” Cody asked. “And we haven’t been told this because? Hey, wait, Savannah did you and Charli know?”
Savannah made the motion of zipping her lips and Cody looke
d at Etta. “Well?”
Etta laughed “Why are you asking me?”
“You’re absolutely right.” Cody jumped up and hurried over to Trina’s table. “Hey, I’m Cody Riggs. I hear you’re Deacon’s daughter.”
Brody stood as Trina looked up. One look at Cody and she smiled. “Yes I am. I’m Trina and it’s nice to meet you.”
“Same here,” Cody said and then looked at Brody. “And you’re Brody Judge. One of the SEAL’s.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Well — oh my God.”
Brody and Trina looked out of the window, in the direction Cody was looking. Lincoln was getting off a motorcycle parked alongside the sidewalk. He looked up, smiled and waved. Trina and Brody did the same.
“Holy hell, you know that guy?” Cody asked.
“Yes, that’s my Uncle Lincoln Shaw. He just bought the blacksmith shop.”
Cody whistled. “Uncle? As in your mama or daddy’s side?”
“He’s my Dad’s half-brother.”
“Figures.”
“Pardon?”
“Your Dad and Wiley have it too. That I’ll take you there look. That one has it in spades.”
Trina laughed. “Well, I agree that they’re all handsome men, but it’d be really icky for me to carry the compliment further.”
Cody laughed. “Okay, before sin wrapped in denim comes in, I hear you two are engaged.”
Brody smiled and sat. “Yes, ma’am, we sure are.”
“Well then, why don’t Y’all come on over to the Honky Tonk tonight and let us throw you a little engagement celebration?”
“Why would you do that?” Trina asked.
“Because that’s what friends do.”
“But we just met.”
“Well, yeah, but isn’t that how all friendships start?”
Trina looked at Brody. He took her hand and smiled, and she turned her attention back to Cody. “Yes, it is, and thank you, we’d love to. Can we ask our family?”
“Family, friends and Mr. Hot Wheels, too.” Cody jerked her chin in Lincoln’s direction who was headed for the door of the diner.
“Thank you, Cody. We’ll see you tonight.”
Just then Lincoln walked in. He came over to their table. “Hey, are you busy later?”
