Where There's Smoke: A Texas Heat Novel (10 page)

Deena wiped tears from her eyes as Rowan signed the divorce decree.

“When will it be final?” he asked without emotion.

“In a few weeks.”

“Thank you Harley.” Deena disconnected the call. “Why didn’t Sawyer hire some high powered celebrity attorney and go for the jugular?”

Felicity shook her head. “I’m telling you, we’re missing something here.”

“Yeah we are,” Rowan said, “Where’s Caleb?”

Chapter 17

3 Months Later

Negril, Jamaica

The oncologist recommended plenty of sunshine and laughter to speed up Booker’s recovery. Sawyer joined her dad on the Caribbean island.

Shortly after leaving Aberdeen, Sawyer used every penny of her own savings for a plane ticket and living expenses. She took a leave of absence from the library and spent her days walking on the beach, reading books on the veranda or watching comedies with her dad and Clinton. The home health aide lived with his family in a colonial house near the sea.

Sawyer shielded her dad from her pain and grief by refusing to talk about the divorce. She cried herself to sleep every single night, which really pissed her off since she was sure Rowan had moved on.

Sawyer communicated with her friends Harper and Emerson, otherwise no one else knew where she disappeared to. Her interview whipped up a firestorm, a media frenzy in The States. Harper bluntly told her that as soon as the divorce was final, Rowan stepped out with Holly. They were the
it
couple on the Austin social scene. The praise and worship singer and Sunday school teacher moved from New York to Aberdeen by the Lake to serve in Rowan’s church.

Sawyer hoped with time and distance, she would get over Rowan, give her shattered heart time to heal. Her heart wouldn’t cooperate. The only man she ever wanted hated her guts for something she didn’t do. How’s that for irony? Sawyer sat on the white rocking chair. Palm trees swayed on the tropical breeze. Sugar cane fields rippled for miles. Children played in the yards below. She loved hearing them speak in Patwah, a form of Creole and English spoken on the island.

Clinton’s wife Precious, cooked delicious meals for their house guests daily. This morning for breakfast, Sawyer feasted on ackee and salt fish, coco bread and ginger beer. She picked up Jane Austen’s
Persuasion.
Oh how she could relate to Anne Elliot’s pain of loving a man lost to her.

Booker took a trip on the river with Clinton and a few of the locals. Precious sang in her church choir so she was off to practice. Their live in housekeeper, Sunny, tapped on the French glass door. “Ya have visitor Miss Sawyer,” she said with her soft Jamaican accent.

“Visitor?” Alarmed, Sawyer shot to her feet. Her heart climbed to her throat. Please don’t let it be, please don’t!

Felicity rolled in the small foyer. She was the last person Sawyer expected to see. Rowan’s sister stared hard at her for a moment. Was she going to cuss her out? Yell at her for the interview? Why come all this way to do it?!

“Well you were difficult to find.”

Sawyer fidgeted uneasily. “I wasn’t trying to hide.”

“Really?” Felicity drawled.

“Would you like a drink or something?”

“No.” Felicity rolled closer. “I don’t make small talk, I flew a few thousand miles because I wanna hear you say to my face that you don’t love my brother and why you betrayed him.”

Sawyer spent months regaining her strength, trying so hard to forget all that she lost. She didn’t want Felicity here stirring up emotions better left unsaid.

“Does…Does Rowan know-” It hurt so much to say his name.

“No he doesn’t know I’m here.”

Sawyer’s breath came out in short bursts of air. “I’m afraid you’ve wasted a trip.”

Felicity’s brown eyes narrowed on Sawyer’s pale face.

“Say you don’t love him and I’ll go.”

Sawyer looked away. “It doesn’t matter now, he’s moved on with someone who’ll make a much better pastor’s wife than I did.”

Felicity remained undaunted. “Say it so I can be on my way.”

Sawyer opened her mouth but the words stuck in her throat like fish bones. That lie she could never tell. Dang it! Her eyes filled with tears. Sawyer spun around to conceal her face. “Please go,” she whispered. The wheels squeaked as Felicity rolled beside her.

“Sawyer,” she said gently. “I still think of you as my sister.”

Tears spilled down Sawyer’s cheeks. “Stop,” she begged.

“Just…Just tell Holly that he likes
Star Wars
marathons, he likes Siths not Jedis, she needs to sneak veggies into his meals or he won’t eat them and if he has a nightmare she should stroke his neck and arm, that soothes him.”

Felicity held her hand and squeezed. “Oh sweety.”

Sawyer sat down on the wood coffee table and bowed her head. Tears dripped on her lap. “I dream about him every night. I get to see him, touch him, feel him,” she sniffed, “Sometimes I watch his broadcast and I get to see him move and hear his voice. I miss him so much. It’s like a piece of me is gone that I’ll never get back. I know, that’s pathetic.”

“No,” Felicity said all choked up, “It’s love.”

Sawyer wiped her tears away impatiently. “Please don’t tell him, I can’t face him again, I just can’t.”

Felicity reached out and wiped Sawyer’s tears away. “What happened with the interview?”

Sawyer’s mouth snapped shut.

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

Felicity frowned. “I know that look, you’re protecting someone.”

Sawyer closed her eyes. “Felicity, I’m asking you to leave this alone, okay? Just, forget, that’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

Felicity tapped her finger on the arm of her chair. “The only ones who knew the details of Becky’s death was Rowan, me, mom, you and…holy shit, it was Caleb.”

Sawyer remained stubbornly silent. “You’re covering for him, just like I did.”

Sawyer gripped her hand. “Please don’t hate him, it wasn’t his fault.”

“He’s been MIA for months,” Felicity said.

“He’s in rehab.”

Felicity leaned back, shocked. “When?”

“I overheard you arguing at the hotel, when you left he confessed to me, Bob North overheard everything. He recorded us and threatened to…”

“Oh my God!” Felicity covered her mouth. “He made you do that interview.”

Sawyer nodded. “He also spiked Caleb’s drink, your brother never meant to drink again after the accident.”

“That son of a bitch got Caleb drunk on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Oh Lord, he got Caleb to talk about Becky!”

Sawyer nodded, too miserable to speak.

“Why didn’t you tell Rowan the truth?”

“A brother can’t be replaced, a wife can.”

Felicity’s face softened. “Oh Sawyer, do you have any idea? Rowan loves you more than anyone, you have to know that.”

Sawyer shook her head. “He loved me as a good friend. He never wanted me romantically.”

Felicity made a rude sound in her throat. “Oh yes he did.”

“He told me,” Sawyer said battling another onslaught of tears, “He never wanted me, I’m not Becky’s equal and he chose her first.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped. “First of all, he was hurt, he didn’t mean any of that, second of all when he’s angry he’s an idiot. I should know, I grew up with the beast, trust me, he can’t function without you. You know he would do anything for you? He paid the balance for your dad’s treatment.”

Sawyer’s eyes widened. Of course Rowan was her rich guardian angel. It warmed her heart that he would do that for her and never seek credit.

“I just don’t want Caleb to feel guilty for hurting another sibling, he was suicidal.”

“Okay Oprah, listen to me. Caleb is a big boy who can face his own demons and the consequences of his actions. You better enjoy some fun in the sun while you can. Once my brother learns the truth he won’t stop until he finds you and makes you his.”

Sawyer shook her head in denial. “It won’t be that easy. We’re divorced now.”

Felicity smiled knowingly. “Okay sis, keep telling yourself that.”

Chapter 18

Aberdeen by the Lake, Texas

After dinner and a movie, Rowan drove Holly to her Victorian bungalow near town square. He parked by the curb and sat with his hands gripping the steering wheel.

Holly inched closer to him. “You’re beautiful,” he said without looking at her. “You’re everything I should want but I still feel married.”

“To Becky?”

“No.”

Holly sat back in the passenger seat. “Oh.”

“After what Sawyer did, you’d think-” Rowan sighed, “I’m sorry, you deserve better.”

Holly leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Becky was right.”

He looked at Holly then. “About what?”

“You are delicious divine.”

Holly got out of the car. She waved from the porch before disappearing inside. Rowan pinched his nose. The headache pounded his temples without warning. “Damn it, Sawyer,” he whispered in the darkness. He missed her so much it hurt to breathe. What she did to Becky…he couldn’t get past it. He drove to the parsonage. The Victorian cottage he shared with Sawyer remained locked. Rowan couldn’t bring himself to go inside. Memories of her burned up the air with unrelenting heat. He loved her so damn much he didn’t know how to let her go. Rowan couldn’t comprehend a future without her in it. He tried praying her away. God felt distant somehow. Rowan wore a band aid around his left finger to cover the wedding band he couldn’t take off. It wasn’t for lack of trying. The first time he slid it to his knuckle he became physically sick. The second attempt was right after their divorce was final. He made it just past the knuckle this time. When that didn’t work, he punch a hole in the wall of his office. Nothing felt right without her. Rowan parked next to Felicity’s SUV. She sat at the top of the wheelchair ramp.

“Hey,” he said. Rowan kissed her cheek. “This is a pleasant surprise, I thought you were at Pirate’s Cove?”

Felicity rolled behind him. Rowan flipped on the lights in the arched hallway.

“You hungry? I can whip up some eggs, bacon and toast.”

“Rowan.” The quaver in her voice warned him. He spun around.

“What? Is mom okay? Caleb?”

“Sit down.”

“No.”

“You were always the most stubborn, knuckleheaded boy.”

“Out with it.”

“Caleb was the drunk driver in my accident.”

Rowan knelt before her. He gripped her hands.
“What?”

Felicity bit her lip. “I didn’t want him to go to jail or” she gestured lamely, “Or lose you and mom for it.”

Rowan stroked her hair and cheek. When he thought about everything she’d been through. At least five surgeries, months of grueling physical therapy, her active life cut short. “I’m going to kill him,” he growled.

“You’re a pastor, murder’s kind of a deal breaker.” They both smiled despite the grim reality.

“Caleb’s in a rehab facility in Florida.”

Rowan raised an eyebrow. “But he’s been sober for five years.”

“That sleazy reporter spiked his drink without him knowing.”

“There’s a time to kill,” Rowan said furiously, “Why did Bob North do that?”

“To pry information he would never get otherwise.”

That took a moment to sink in. The blood drained from his face. “Becky?”

Felicity nodded.

He knelt before her, ashen. “Then Sawyer?”

“No, she was trying to protect Caleb and all of us. Bob North threatened her into doing the interview. He said he would expose Caleb’s role in my accident and tell the world. Rowan, she never said those things about Becky.”

Rowan made an inhuman sound of despair. He bowed his head in Felicity’s lap as he used to do as a child. The last time he sought comfort like that, their dad had died suddenly of a heart attack. Felicity stroked his red gold hair.

“Oh God,” he whispered hoarsely, “I hurt my girl so much.”

“You can get her back.”

He shook his head. “I said terrible things,” he swallowed audibly, “I can’t make this right.”

“You’re Rowan Camden, you can do anything.”

He remembered the stricken look on Sawyer’s face when he told her -
“I can’t trust you, I can’t even look at you.”

And she stood there, taking a tongue lashing from him she didn’t deserve, protecting his brother and trying to reach Rowan the only way she knew how.
“I love you so much…Please believe me…don’t hate me.”

Her plea fell on deaf ears. “
Get out of my sight.”

And she wept -
“I love you Rowan, till my last breath I love you.”

Then he eviscerated her with brutal words he could never take back.

“I never would’ve left Becky for you. You’re way out of your league if you think you were her equal. She was and she will always be my first choice. I didn’t want you then and I sure as hell don’t want you now.”

Sawyer ran from him then and he let her go.

“Fee,” he said, reminding her of that lost boy who just lost their father, “She won’t take me back.”

Felicity touched his strong jaw. “You underestimate the power of the force. There is no try, do or don’t do.”

“Thanks Yoda.”

“You’re welcome Luke.”

“I’m not some punk Jedi.”

“Yeah, yeah you’re a Sith Lord.”

Rowan frowned. “Wait, how do you know? Have you seen her?”

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes. “How is she?”

Felicity told him everything.

Chapter 19

When Rowan left for college without saying good-bye, Sawyer barely spoke to him for months. To win her back, he sent her letters and care packages.

One week after Felicity’s visit, Sawyer received an old Sony Walkman tape player, like they used to have in high school. The tape had two songs on it.

Chicago’s
Hard to Say I’m Sorry
and Dido’s
Here with Me
.

Sawyer blushed. “If he thinks I’m going to just fall into his arms-”

Her dad smiled. Love letters and poems arrived daily along with flowers, chocolate and stuffed animals. Rowan sent her favorite DVD sets – The TV show
Outlander
,
Battle Star Galactica
and
The Librarian
.

Clinton’s wife Precious, clapped her hands bemused, “Laud me never see so many gifts in all me days!”