Master of the Abyss

The small, single room looked dusty but clean. Jake set the cooler on the floor, tossed his sleeping bag onto one of the cheap cots and his duffel on the couch. With his rod and tackle box, he headed out the back door, down the tilted stone steps, and out onto the small floating dock. A few minutes later, he made a good cast and settled into a wooden chair white with age.

As if his ass planted on the creaky dock sent a signal to his brain, his anger eased and his jaw loosened. His chest still felt hollowed out. Probably nothing would change that except time. He’d felt like this when Mimi died. This might be worse.

Less guilt. More pain-a lot more pain.

Sunlight glinted off the treacherous center of the river, where the slow-moving surface concealed the fast current. The alder and maple trees along the bank whispered with a different sound than the tall mountain evergreens. Shallower. Perfect for a bastard who had caused a woman to die.

“She took the easy way out.” Kallie had been blunt, even brutal.

Jake turned the words over in his head.

And then his thoughts wandered down more familiar trails, the arguments he’d had with himself over and over. Could he have done something differently? Perhaps sucked it up and stayed with Mimi?

He shook his head. No. Their relationship had been falling apart already, the distance between them growing as she’d increased her dependence on him and he’d wanted less. He’d made the breakup as gentle as he could. Even before that, she’d known their time together had reached the end; she had said as much.

And he hadn’t left her. He’d stayed with her, held her, mourned with her over the lost hopes for a life together. She’d looked forward to San Francisco-he could have sworn it. Dammit, how could he, her dom, her lover, have misread her intentions and emotions so completely?

For months afterward, he’d reexamined every tiny nuance of her words, her expressions, her body language in the days prior to her death. He couldn’t-still couldn’t-see any signs that she’d felt such despair.

He forced himself to take a long breath, reeled the line in, and cast again. If he could go back and change things… If she’d never met him-if he hadn’t found her staring helplessly at a flat tire one day. If she hadn’t just broken up with Whipple… Jake sighed and rubbed his cheek, felt the stubble of a day’s growth, and couldn’t seem to care. If she’d never met him, she’d probably have met someone, married him, had children, might have lived happily ever after. She’d be alive, not dead.

The guilt of that…

He’d never have willingly hurt her. And now he’d hurt Kallie too.

He reeled in the line. A fish had nibbled off the worm. After rebaiting the hook, he cast again.

Kallie. Honest. Blunt. He snorted. Definitely blunt. “Are you planning to spend your whole life alone, or are there a certain number of years you have to go before you’ve served your sentence?” Did he want to live his life alone?

Silence surrounded him, broken only by the rippling river and the distant cry of a hawk. He could live his life in this kind of silence…but he wanted more than that. He’d always assumed he’d have what his parents had: love, sharing, laughter, and children.

How many years before he’d served his sentence? He lay the rod down, anchored it with his foot, and scrubbed his face with his hands. A clear-sighted woman, that Kallie. He’d done exactly that, deprived himself of any relationship. If Mimi can’t have love, then I can’t either.

That was just… Had he really believed that?

Yep.

The sprite had also called him a pussy. He grinned for a second. Got in a lot of blows, hadn’t she? And the term fit. The pain of loss-yeah, a man would avoid that if possible, but Jake could handle loss, although the thought of never holding Kallie again squeezed his chest like a giant’s fist.

The guilt he’d felt had been the sticker.

Had been. He frowned. Past tense. The blackness was still there, true, but subdued. Manageable. The pain would never leave him completely, he knew, for somehow, someway, he’d missed seeing Mimi’s intentions. He’d have tried to stop her if he’d known. But he hadn’t.

He was human. He’d screwed up. He undoubtedly would again.

A small flame of anger flared inside him. Couldn’t Mimi have given him a chance to make things right for her? She shouldn’t have just…quit, no matter how much she had hurt.

Could you even know-trust-another person to stay alive, to weather life’s difficulties? He considered his brother, Becca. Kallie. No, they wouldn’t take the easy way out. Fighters, all of them.

Pussy. He hadn’t thought of himself as being gutless, yet a person could find more than one way to step back from life. Refusing to live it-to participate, to love-was as craven as taking it. Why hadn’t he seen that he’d been a coward?

He looked up toward the wide bowl of sky where heaven was located; his great- grandmother had told him that, and she was never wrong. “Okay, Mimi,” he murmured, his gaze going past the few clouds and on farther, to the unknowable. “You’ve gone on ahead. I can’t fix what happened, and it’s time for me to go back to living.” His throat tightened. “We weren’t meant to be, but I did love you, sweetheart, and I hope you’ll give me your blessing from wherever you are now.”

His eyes burned, and he swallowed painfully. Okay. That was done.

He took a deep breath and another. On the far bank, a deer and her spotted fawn ventured down to the water, and he remembered how he’d always thought of Mimi as a young deer. He watched as they drank, ears swiveling to catch any sound, then bounded back into the forest.

Jake shifted his weight and frowned. He had a notoriously bad-tempered sprite to confront. What would he tell her?

As the river flowed past him, heading inexorably toward the sea, he pondered. He wanted her. In his bed. In his life? No. You being a pussy again, Hunt? Face it, he cared for her. Cared too much-for a cowardly pussy-but facts were facts. The thought of losing her had driven him to take a long look at his actions.

Pussy. He snorted a laugh.

And now he’d have to go back, manage to keep her from belting him, and talk about their relationship-and they damn well did have a relationship. He rubbed his chin. Charging into battle might be less dangerous than facing Kallie in a rage. But somehow he’d simply get her to stand still long enough for him to explain.

Dream on, Hunt.

* * *

If the Lowery family noticed Kallie talked less today, they didn’t say anything. She had tried to keep them too busy to talk: a mountain lake, a ridge overlooking the basin, a talus slope filled with whistling marmots. That afternoon, she returned them to Serenity Lodge, where they’d stay for another night.

After unpacking their personal gear from Coco, she helped carry it into the lodge. As she set down the packs, she noticed a man talking to someone in the kitchen. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark brown hair. Kallie’s heart lifted far enough to clog her throat and started to pound.

“Jake!” Tamara tore across the room. “Why did you leave so early? I wanted to-” The man turned, and the little girl skidded to a halt on the wood floor.

Logan, not Jake. He smiled down at the child. “Sorry, kitten, Jake is out of town for a while.”

“Oh.” Tamara backed up. Logan lacked Jake’s easy manner, his sheer enjoyment of people, and the girl undoubtedly sensed that. Pouting, she trudged back to Kallie.