Razing Kayne (6 page)

She nodded and failed to stifle a giggle. He flashed a heart-stopping grin in return.

“Retreat!”
Ash ordered as soon as Kayne started lobbing snowballs at their feet with incredible
accuracy.

Jess fell into Kayne's side laughing. He wrapped her in his arms as if they'd done
this a hundred times. Kayne smiled down at her. “You're going to give into their demands
anyway, aren't you?”

For a long moment, they stood there lost in each other, until she remembered he'd
asked a question. “I've never been able to say no to them, Jarred,” she stammered
nervously.

Kayne's arms dropped, and he took a hasty step back. She wasn't sure who was more
shocked over her slip. But before she could apologize, Kayne turned and walked away.

***

Desperate to get the fuck out of there, Kayne didn't say goodbye to anyone. He needed
to be alone. He’d been so wrapped up in the moment—something he shouldn't have allowed
to happen—
that he'd forgotten he didn't belong.
Until Jessica had called him by her deceased husband's name.
He knew it had been an accident, but it had been the wakeup call he'd needed.

She'd met her one true love, and he'd been taken from her, and Kayne had no place
in her life.
Didn't want one.
Did. Not.
He'd already failed one wife, one family. He would never be put in that position
again.

Granted, Oksana had been so terribly young and struggled to find her place in a new
country so unlike Russia. In the beginning, the only happiness she seemed to find
was at the Russian Community Center. It was more than an hour drive, each away, but
Kayne hadn't cared; it had made her happy, and that was all that mattered. So he'd
made the round trip twice a day, three days a week, for months until she got her driver's
license. Once that happened, she’d gone every day. Even when she was heavy with child,
she'd made the long drive to be with her friends.

Some days he felt like the cops were right—that he
had
killed her. Not by pulling the trigger, but by how he'd handled things. Why had he,
a professional, not seen the warning signs for what they were and been able to stop
it? He'd failed his children, by failing his wife.

Jessica though…she was different. She was a good mother to children that hadn't come
from her womb. It took an incredible person to open themselves up like that. The thought
that he could, in some way, taint that made him physically ill. They'd already lost
too much. Though Jessica needed someone, it wasn't him. And if the idea of her with
another man made his stomach churn, he'd just have to get over it.

***

Later that night, Kayne climbed into the shower, utterly exhausted. Alone in his quiet
little house with no one to care for, no one to be strong for, he let the emotions
wash over him. He punched the tile as hard as he could again and again, until his
knuckles bled, then slumped down to the floor and sobbed.

Christ almighty!
He missed his children so damned much. For the first time in nearly two years, he
even missed Oksana. Regardless of what she'd done, he couldn't help but miss the glimpses
of the girl he’d thought he'd known before that fateful day. He hated the silence,
his cold empty bed, and the nightmares that never faded.

How in God's name was he supposed to endure seeing his precious children's lifeless
bodies laid out on a tile floor, wrapped in towels, ready to be disposed of as if
they were garbage, every time he closed his eyes? How the
fuck
was he supposed to move past helplessly watching
someone he had vowed to love kill herself? To have her blood and matter covering his
body and not have it indelibly imprinted onto his soul. The memories haunted him.

Autopsies confirmed both children had been dead for hours, so why had she waited?
Did she get what she was looking for by seeing his reaction to what she'd done before
she killed herself? If her intent was to destroy him, she’d succeeded. If she’d put
the gun to his head and pulled the trigger that day instead of hers, it would have
been a blessing.

Eventually, when the water chilled, when he’d started shaking from the cold instead
of the anger and heart wrenching pain, he shut off the water and climbed out. He managed
to pull on a pair of sweats then sat down on the couch with a bottle of whiskey and
his firearm, determined. This would be the night. All he wanted was to be with his
children.

After his fourth shot of whiskey, he picked up his service weapon and made sure it
was loaded and chambered.
A useless delay tactic.
God, he was such a fucking coward. Then with a trembling hand, he set the firearm
down before throwing back another drink.

Inevitably, his thoughts drifted to Jessica, and her sweet little family; to Gracie
who reminded him so much of his Natalia. By some miracle was Tasha still out there
somewhere? Was she safe? Loved?

Kayne drifted into unconsciousness with images of a little girl toddling toward him
who looked very much like Gracie Hallstatt, but she was calling him “Papa.”

SIX

It took Jess two days to screw up her nerve to call Kayne and apologize. She wasn't
sure why it mattered so much, why she couldn't just leave well enough alone, but it
did, and she couldn't. How screwed up was that? She didn't want a relationship with
him, knew one could never happen. Yet she still felt the need to reach out to him,
and try as she might, that need wouldn't leave her alone. Every time she closed her
eyes, she pictured the raw look on his face as he held a sleeping Gracie at the picnic.
No one should have to bear that type of pain alone.

“Hey, Kayne, it's Jess. Um, Jessica Hallstatt.” she said, when he answered.

“Hi.”

“Listen, I just wanted to—”

“I'm sorry—”

“Apologize—”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence for a moment, and then she forged ahead. “I
don't know how to do this.” The moment the remark was out of her mouth, she realized
how telling that statement was. How encompassing. Hearing his voice kicked her heart
rate into the triple digit range.

“This?”

Great, how was she supposed to answer that? She should just hang up now and save both
of them any further embarrassment. Instead, she asked, “Do you like Mexican food?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Would you like to come for dinner tomorrow night?”
Silence.
She quickly added, “It's Wednesday, which is game night, and I promised the kids
homemade Mexican food. They'd love to see you.”

There was a long pause in which she was certain he was going to say no, but he surprised
her. “Sure, I'd like that.”

***

“Dobrescu.”
Kayne mumbled into the phone the next morning. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows
on knees and scrubbed his face with his free hand. He heard radio traffic in the background,
interrupted by occasional silence—dispatch. The silence occurred when the dispatcher
keyed up to respond to the officer and muted phone conversation.
“Hey, sorry about that.
Kayne?”

“Yeah.”
Why the hell had he answered the phone without looking at the caller I.D.? No easier
way to get roped into working an undesired shift.

“Wow, asleep at noon—you take your day off seriously.”

Kayne recognized the flirtatious voice.
Candice again.
Though most of the guys called her Candy.
He simply grunted, hoping she'd get to the point.

After a moment she took the hint. “Sgt. Balentine wants you to cover a traffic detail
for a few hours.”

“When?”

“As soon as you can check 10-8.”

“I can't work past
four,
I have a date...er, uh plans.”
He couldn't—
shouldn't—
call it a date.

“The date excuse sounds better.” She laughed.
“Especially if it's with me.
What time are you picking me up?”

He'd thought she would have caught a clue by now that he wasn't interested. “Look,
Candice, I'm seeing someone.”

“I won't tell her, if you don't.” Her laugh said the remark wasn’t necessarily a joke.

After reluctantly agreeing to the shift, Kayne threw on a uniform and tossed some
street clothes in a duffel bag. That way if he didn't have time to come home, he wouldn't
be stuck in a uniform all evening.

He waited for a break in radio traffic before calling in for duty. “Eleven-three-eight,
I'm 10-8, enroute,”

“Good morning, sir, scene is mile post 247.5, southbound State Route 87.”

“Copy.”
And wasn't that a fun spot—Corvair Curve–a steep sharp curve on a winding highway
halfway down Oxbow Hill, about five miles south of Payson.

“Hey, Kayne,” Sgt. Balentine greeted. “I need you to come down to the scene.
First curve after the warning grid.
We're going to be here for a while.”

“Did dispatch advise you this carriage turns pumpkin at sixteen hundred hours?”

“Negative, we'll do our best.”
Our
best,
was similar to a parent saying
maybe
. As in, not fucking gonna happen.

Kayne arrived on scene and realized God and everybody was there. From the looks of
the apparatus, he surmised it must be a HazMat situation. It took a moment, but he
located Sgt. Balentine. “What happened?”

“Fuel tanker straightened out the curve.”

“Did it explode?”

“No, but it's leaking.” He gestured toward the firemen. “We're all stuck here until
the fuel company deigns to grace us with their presence and clean this mess up. Be
warned though, their crew’s on edge. They lost one of their own on a similar call
a couple years ago.”

“Did you work the accident the night Jarred Hallstatt died?” The words were out of
Kayne’s mouth before he could stop himself. Surely there couldn't have been two similar
accidents that close to each other.

“What the fuck is it to you?” asked an angry voice from somewhere behind him.

Kayne turned to find two firemen carrying equipment toward them. One he recognized—Joe
Sutton, the guy who'd been manning the grill at the picnic. The other one he was pretty
sure he'd never seen before.
“Just wondering if this was the same place.”

“You gonna start taking people on tours? He's buried just up the road.
That going to be on the tour too?”

Kayne was certain he’d never met the belligerent hose-monkey. He’d remember this guy
.
“What the hell is your problem? It was a simple question.”

“No problem, just a stupid firefighter waiting around for something to explode. Maybe
we can go two for two. You wanna be the one to choose who gets blown to shit and leaves
a wife and kids behind this time?”

Kayne could see how his question might have sounded insensitive. It only made sense
for the men who'd been there that night, or those who’d known Jarred Hallstatt, to
be feeling the stress on this scene. Emergency personnel were generally a superstitious
lot, he also allowed. They knew what vicious bitches the fates could be. They planned
vacation time around full moons, avoided saying the word “quiet” in any context while
on duty—unless they wanted all hell to break loose—knew dead body calls came in threes,
and that officers always sat or stood with their back to a wall. Kayne figured he
could probably write a book about emergency services superstitions.

“This place is notorious for accidents. Bad ones,” Balentine explained. “Once we had
a vehicle jump the guardrail, leaving it intact so no one knew about the accident.
Hunters found the car suspended in a tree, the bodies trapped inside,
months
later.”

Wasn't
that
a pleasant thought, though Kayne had seen far
worse.

“Hope you brought paperwork or a book.”
Translation: you’re going to be here for a while.

“Both. I figured I was here for eye candy.” Kayne batted his eyelashes. His sole purpose
was to be present in case a problem arose.

“Your girlfriend
find
that funny?” the belligerent hose-monkey asked.

“You'd have to ask her.”  Where the fuck had that come from? Jess was
not,
and never would be, his girlfriend. Nor would anyone else be for that matter. He'd
never let another woman that close.

Thankfully, Balentine interrupted what Kayne was sure would turn into more than just
a glaring contest with this idiot. “The Deputy at the top of Oxbow Hill is supposed
to turn all traffic around.”

A few moments later, Balentine left Kayne to deal with the scene and the belligerent
hose-monkey, who he'd just learned was Fire Lieutenant Cody Johnson. He'd been Jarred
Hallstatt's best friend. To Kayne, Cody looked like a weasely little creep. Five-ten
and one-eighty, he had sandy blond hair and generic brown eyes that were set a little
too close together. There was nothing spectacular to make him stand out, unless Kayne
counted a weak chin and a nose a few sizes too large for Cody’s lean face. As if Kayne
were any judge of what women found attractive. It made him wonder what Jarred had
looked like.
Birds of a feather and all that.

Kayne had just finished his backlog of paperwork and opened his book when Cody walked
up. “Sorry to interrupt story time, but any ETA on the fuel company and their plans
for this ticking time bomb?”

It was going to be a long fucking afternoon. Kayne bit back a sigh. He picked up his
mic and radioed dispatch.
“Eleven-three-eight, ETA on the fuel company?”

“Unknown ETA, they're coming out of Yuma,” dispatch replied.

“You're shitting me,” Kayne mumbled to himself. He pressed the talk button again and
asked, “Are they aware this thing could take out the side of a mountain if a squirrel
decides to chuck an acorn at it? And let me tell you, we've got some angry mutant
attack squirrels around here.”

“Standby.”
A moment later, a message came across his onboard computer.
Should we put an APB out on Alvin, Simon, and Theodore?

Kayne
heard Cody cough and turned to see him fighting a smile. He'd read the message. Glad
someone found her amusing.

“Girlfriend?”
Cody asked.

“Hell no!
She's worse than the squirrels.”

They both laughed, finally relieving some of the tension.

“Look, sorry about earlier.”

Hm, an olive branch?
Kayne shrugged. “I didn't mean anything by it. I was just wondering if it's the same
place.”

“Part of orientation for rookies?”

“No, a friend mentioned it.” Something told Kayne it wasn't a good idea to divulge
his association with Jessica, especially since he couldn't put a label on it.

“It's the same damned spot.”

“I'm sorry he died.” Kayne sincerely meant that
.
Though he didn't know her well, he knew enough to know a woman like Jessica Hallstatt
deserved happiness.

Dispatch interrupted any further conversation.
“Eleven-three-eight.”

Kayne picked up his mic. “Go ahead.”

“ETA four hours, and eleven-three-one said no dice on a replacement.”

Shit!

“Copy.”
Why the hell had he answered his phone? Even if the fuel company arrived in four
hours, it would take
them
hours to transfer the remaining fuel and clean up.
Which meant he was stuck here well into the night.
Unbelievable!

Kayne picked up his cell phone and called dispatch.

“Hey, don't kill the messenger,” she said in lieu of a greeting.

“I told both of you I had plans. Where the hell is everyone else?”

“Still MIA. They probably heard the chatter over their scanners and knew better than
to answer their phones.”

“My
plans aside, the fuel company needs
to get here now, not four hours from now.”

“Sorry, babe, not happening.
Saguaro Fuel says their only available crew is coming from Yuma.” 

With no other option, Kayne called Jessica to cancel.

She answered on the first ring. “I heard.”

“I'm really sorry, short stuff.
Rain check?”

“Hey, no big deal.
It was just dinner and board games.”

But it
was
a big deal to him. Of course he couldn't tell her that. “I have Saturday off. Maybe
we can do something then.” The words were out of his mouth before he thought better
of the idea.
Are you asking her out on a date, asshole? Thought you'd decided to leave her the
hell alone.

“
I have a rehearsal brunch I’m catering at ten. Polly's going to have the kids all
morning. I'm so sorry.”

He tried to push the inexplicable disappointment aside. “No big deal.”

Her voice was soft, hesitant. “We could do something afterward.”

Say no, say no,
say
no!
“Sure, what did you have in mind?”

“Whatever you'd like.”

He was sure she wouldn’t want to hear what he’d really like to do with her. “How about
we drive into the city? I'm sure we could find something to occupy the kids too.”

There was a slight pause before she said, “You don't mind taking them with us?”

Was she disappointed he'd assumed they'd be along or surprised he'd include them?
He couldn't tell. “That's up to you, but I assumed we'd do something as a...” His
voice trailed off. He'd been about to say “family.” What the fuck was wrong with him?
He shoved the confusing thoughts into the corner of his mind
.
“I just thought you'd want them along.”