Cain's Salvation (Passion in Paradise - The Men of the McKinnon Sisters) (6 page)

Waiting until he heard
the screen door on the porch clatter shut as Zeke walked into the house, Cain
turned to look at Honor.  Gesturing toward the wooden swing that his
father had built for his mom decades ago, he asked, “Won’t you have a seat?”

“So, you
have
remembered
how to use your manners.  I’m impressed,” Honor murmured as she moved
toward the seat.  “Not all civility has been lost.”

“Not quite, but pretty
close,” he muttered, his jaw flexing as he watched the petite woman settle on
one side of the swing.  Staring into the forest that marked the edge of
one side the Turner property, he swallowed hard.  “How is she, Honor?” he
asked starkly, staring at the trees without really seeing them.  He had to
ask… to know.  Ever since Abel had told him about the bar fight last
night, he’d been worried about Faith. 

Hell, he’d even driven
out to the McKinnon place before dawn this morning. He’d known he wouldn’t see
her.  No, he didn’t have the courage it would take to face her.  He’d
just needed to be close to her for a little while.  So, he’d sat there in
his truck for over an hour, staring at Faith’s darkened window, wondering if
she was alright.  If she missed him as much as he missed her.

“Cain…”

“I need to know,
Honor,” he growled, spinning on his heel to face her, his heel sharply digging
into the topsoil.  “Is she alright?”

“Pour out the rest of
that beer, and we’ll talk,” Honor urged, nodding to the longneck in his
hand.  “It’s barely eleven, Cain.  No one needs to be drinking this
early in the day.”

Glancing at the bottle,
Cain shook his head. 

“I can’t stand the
stench.  It’s one of the only things I remember from that night,” Honor
declared in a voice haunted by the past.  She folded her hands tightly in
her lap and looked pained.  “Any time I catch a whiff of it on a man, it
brings back memories I’d rather not have.  I’d especially don’t want to
associate those memories with you.  Please get rid of it.”

Exhaling shakily at her
taut admission, Cain’s shoulders slumped.  Walking wordlessly to the tree
line, he tipped the bottle and let the gold liquid flow to the ground before
tossing the bottle down.  Jesus, he was an asshole.  He should have
remembered that detail about Honor.  The man he used to be
would
have remembered.  Returning to where she sat on the swing, he
apologized.  “I’m sorry, Honor.  I wasn’t thinking.  Working at
the bar must be hell on you.”

“I very rarely go into
that area of the café.  Patience and Faith primarily run the bar. 
Don’t worry about me,” she replied with a kind smile.  “Sit down, Cain,”
she ordered softly, inclining her head toward the empty place beside her. 
“I won’t bite.”

Cain sat...mostly
because very few people denied Honor anything.  Hell, the only person he
could remember standing his ground against her was Zeke.  Honor had told
the Sheriff to go away and leave her alone repeatedly over the years, but that
man just ignored her and kept coming back for more.  Cain admired the
other man’s stamina.   Leaning back against the swing, Cain
sighed.  “Please tell me how she is, Honor,” he repeated.  Fuck, he
was close to begging here, but he didn’t give a damn.  This was about
Faith, and he needed to know before he lost his mind.

“If you’re talking
about the bar brawl last night, Faith is fine.  She ended up with three
stitches in her forehead, but otherwise, she’ll be okay.”

Stitches?  His gut
clenched.  How the fuck bad had things been if Faith needed
stitches
? 
“Did the attending do a CT scan?  X-rays?” he asked, automatically
shifting into doctor mode.  “She could have a concussion, Honor. 
How’s her vision?  It wasn’t blurred, was it?” he asked urgently, his
shoulders stiffening as his body reacted to the thought of Faith in danger. 
“She didn’t see that quack, Meadows, did she?  I wouldn’t trust that man
with my damn dog!” he spat.  “You need to get her into see Dr. Fell in
town.  He’s a decent guy, and if there’s any lingering pain today…”

Watching Cain react out
of the corner of her eye, Honor felt relief swamp her.  There might be
hope for him and Faith yet, she thought privately.  A man that no longer
cared for a woman didn’t look ready to spit nails at the thought of her having
a concussion.  Covering the fist he rested against his knee with her hand,
Honor squeezed gently.  “Faith saw Doc Hibbs, who you know has been a very
competent physician since God was a boy.  She had no signs of concussion,
and she’s going to be physically fine, Cain.  Take a breath.”

Cain inhaled deeply as
he let Honor’s calm words soothe him. If the youngest McKinnon had any doubt
that Faith was anything but healthy and whole, she wouldn’t be here with him
now, he reminded himself.  Hanging his head, he closed his eyes. 
God, what a mess he’d made of everything.  Not only had he wrecked his own
life, but Faith was suffering, too.  If he’d been there for her, none of
this would have happened.  He would have stopped the brawl before it ever
happened because no man would ever touch her if he was there to protect
her.  When all was said and done, he was as responsible for what happened
to Faith last night as the men that had done her harm. 

“Who hurt her?” he
asked harshly.  “Which bastard laid his hands on her?  I already
asked Abel, but the bastard wouldn’t tell me.  I couldn’t beat it out of
him either.  Eventually, though, I’m going to find out.  Do me a
favor and save me some time.  Give me a name, Honor, and I’ll make sure he
never puts his hands on her again.”

“Are you nuts?” Honor
snorted, eyeing him like he’d grown horns.  Did he really think that she
was going to hand over that information to him in the mood he was currently?

“A little bit,” Cain
admitted, staring down at the younger woman’s slim hand covering his. 
“Please tell me exactly what happened.  Abel was deliberately vague on the
details, and I’ve spend the night imagining the worst.” 

“The men that got into
a fight last night at the bar are already in custody, Cain,” Honor explained
slowly.  “Zeke’s deputies arrested them both last night.  To clarify,
neither of those men
hit
Faith.  One of them got a little too
friendly with his roving hand.  She rebuffed him, and the other party took
offence to the first party’s friendliness.  Chaos, as you can imagine,
ensued.  Faith tripped over one of the men’s feet and fell during the
scuffle.  She hit her head against the table.  That’s how she was
injured.”

“One of those bastards
put his hands on my Faith?” Cain growled dangerously.  He was ready to
kill somebody with his bare hands.  The thought of someone…
anyone
…
putting their hands on Faith without her permission was enough to send him into
a killing frenzy.  His woman was tiny.  If she’d caught a man’s fist
during that brawl, she could have been seriously hurt.

“That’s an interesting
choice of words,” Honor noted mildly, turning her head to watch Cain’s clenched
face.  “
Your
Faith, hmmm?  Cain, I do believe that you are
still very much in love with my sister.  Your own words just outted you,
my friend.  What I want to know now is what
you
intend to do about
it.”

“Nothing, Honor. 
I’m going to do absolutely nothing about it,” Cain replied quietly, staring off
into space.  “That’s the best thing I
could
do for her. 
Believe me, I’m doing her a favor by staying out of her way.”

“That’s crap.  At
the very least, you owe her an apology, Cain,” Honor replied, tucking her hair
behind her ear as a cool breeze blew over them.  “You wrecked her.”

“No more than I wrecked
myself,” he returned softly, lifting a hand to rub the faint scars that ran
along his jaw.

“Does it still hurt?”
Honor asked, watching his movement.  “The scars, I mean? I can clearly see
that losing Faith is killing you,” she added quickly when he flinched. 
“They look like they’ve healed well,” she murmured, eyeing the puckered skin.

“No, they’re fine,” he
answered huskily, hanging his head.  “I can’t be the man that Faith
deserves, Honor.  I’m not who I was when I left for Afghanistan,” he
confided painfully.  “I’m just a shadow, honey.  A man that doesn’t
have a soul left to lose.  She needs to get on with her life without me
there fucking things up for her.”

Silent for a minute,
Honor finally shook her head and licked her lips.  “I don’t know what
you’ve been through, Cain.  I’ve never been to war.  I haven’t seen
the things you have or done the things that you had to do.  The only thing
I know is that a person doesn’t get to quit on life.  You can’t stay out
here and will yourself to die.  I can understand the desire.  I truly
do.  I’ve felt it myself, but, you’ve got to keep going.  You’ve
taken time to lick your wounds, but now you’ve got to get on with things.”

“How?” he questioned
faintly.  “How can you say that?”

“What doesn’t kill us
makes us stronger, Cain.”  Hearing his snort, she smiled.  “I know, I
know” she drawled.  “I hated that statement when I heard it, too, after I
was raped.  I remember being so angry at y’all after you and Abel and Zeke
pulled me out of that hole in the ground.  I’d made my peace with God
already; I was just waiting for Him to take me home.  Then, I opened my
eyes and you were there.  I remember thinking that if you damn men had
just taken a few minutes longer to show up, I’d have been released from my
suffering.  Is that how you felt after you survived the ambush?”

Nodding, Cain swallowed
the lump that had formed in his throat.  “I was pinned in the
humvee.  We’d wrecked during the attack.  One of the opposing forces
threw the IED and the back of the truck blew.  There was fire
everywhere.  The driver had been killed instantly and I could see the men
falling outside one by one.”

“What did you think
about while you were waiting to die?”

“Faith,” he replied
simply, blinking back tears.  “I thought about Faith.  I’d already
sent that damn letter off to her.  It was a stupid, impulsive thing to do,
I know.  I’d been having a rough time of it in theatre,” he explained
hoarsely.  “Patients were dying one after another and I just lost my
faith.  Afghanistan chips away at a man’s soul, Honor.  War makes a
man forget who he is.  I could feel the man Faith fell in love with just
eroding away.  So, I decided to release her.  I wrote that letter and
mailed it before I could talk myself out of it.”

“Do you think sending
that letter was a mistake now?” Honor questioned carefully.

Running a hand over his
face, Cain shrugged.  “I don’t know.  When my vehicle blew, the only
thing I could think of was Faith.  Her face.  Her smile.  Her
laugh.  I hated thinking that I was going to leave this world with her hating
me.  I deserve her hatred.  Hell, I’ve earned it.  God knows, I
have, but…”

“You’ve never stopped
loving her.”

“Never,” Cain admitted
huskily, unwilling to lie about something so important.  “Not even for a
second.  I don’t think I ever could.  The truth remains unchanged,
however.  Faith deserves more than I have to offer her.  I’m broken
inside, Honor.  The things that happened over there changed
me.   All that death and anguish… seeing it every day… I’m not…
right.  Not anymore.”

“What you are is traumatized. 
Abel said that you won’t even consider going back to work at the hospital.”

“I can’t,” Cain denied
flatly.  “I can’t watch anyone else die.  I won’t.”

“So, you’re just going
to stay out here and drink yourself to death?” Honor asked, challenging him. 
“I never took you for a coward, Cain.”

“Don’t push me, Honor,”
Cain bit out, the muscle in his jaw beginning to tic. 

“Why?” Honor asked
simply.  “You pushed me.  You all did. You, your brother, Zeke...each
one of you bullied me into opening my eyes after those men dumped my body in
that hole.   After you dug me out of Earth and dragged me back into
the land of the living, each one of you lined up to tell me that I couldn’t
die.  And I
tried
to just let it all go.  I wanted to escape
the world.”

“I remember,” Cain
returned huskily.  “You coded on me three times that night.”

“And you kept bringing
me back.  I still remember what you said when I opened my eyes in the
hospital.  You told me that it wasn’t time for me to go yet.  You
ordered me to keep breathing.”

“I couldn’t let you
go.  You were too important to lose.”  He meant every word he
said.  Even then, he knew how important the younger woman was to those
around her.  If they’d lost Honor, it would have crippled her
sisters.  And Zeke…he didn’t want to think about what it would have done
to that man.  No, losing her light hadn’t been an option any of them had
been willing to accept that night. 

“Do you think I feel
any differently about you, Cain?  You and Abel have been like brothers to
me,” Honor reminded him quietly.

“You
deserved
to
be saved, Honor.  I don’t.”  He’d lost too many lives that he should
have been able to save.  He’d
taken
too many lives, too, he thought
remembering how he’d killed three of the men that had surrounded his humvee on
the day they’d been ambushed.  He’d pulled the trigger on his gun without
hesitation, ending three lives.  And it didn’t bother him.  What kind
of monster did that make him?

“Excuse my language,
but that’s just bullshit.”

He laughed despite the
anger and aggravation behind her words.  Hearing Honor curse was sort of
like watching Santa smoke weed.  It was just wrong.

“Everyone deserves to
be saved, Cain,” Honor insisted, gripping his hand tightly in hers.  “Even
crotchety, ornery old you.”  By God, they would save him, too, she
mentally vowed.  Faith needed him.

“You’re old enough to
recognize that some people are lost causes, honey.  I’m one of them,” Cain
countered sadly.  “What’s done has been done.  I can’t go back and
un-send a letter.  I can’t be the man I used to be either.  This is
my new reality.”

“You have scars,
Cain.  Some of them you can see; some you can’t.  You and I share
that quality.  Nothing can change what we’ve endured.  It doesn’t
mean that we have to let it control us.  You survived Afghanistan for a
reason and it wasn’t so you could come home and drink yourself to death while
you waste away out here on your daddy’s farm.  You can’t hide from life
forever.”

Kicking the dirt, Cain
grumbled under his breath, “I’m going to beat Abel’s ass for draggin’ you into
my nightmare.”

“Don’t you dare fight
with your brother,” Honor admonished him sternly.  “He loves you. 
He’s worried about you.  After seeing you for myself, I can see why.”

“Honey, my brother and
I have been tying up since we were in the womb.  Why do you think our
momma named us Cain and Abel?”

Smiling, Honor nudged
the ground with her foot and settled back as the swing swayed.  “Apt as
your names are, fighting won’t solve anything for either of you.  Abel
came to me because he thought if anybody could understand where your head is at
right now, it was me.”

“He mighta had a point
there,” Cain mumbled, silently conceding that his brother had been right. 
His conversation with Honor was making him feel better...or, at least, more
human than he had in weeks. 

“Cain, I’m gonna say it
again.  What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  It might take some
time, but it
does
happen eventually,” Honor assured him gently. 
“Like the wounds on your body, the ones on your heart are still healin’. 
It’s just going to take time.”

“I’m damaged, Honor,
and I can’t be salvaged.”  He wished things were different.  If he
could go back and be the easy going man he’d once been, he would.  In a
heartbeat.  The rude awakening, however, was that person didn’t exist
anymore.

“Can’t or won’t?” she
snapped, growing irritated by his attitude.  “My sister needs you, Cain
Turner.  I’m tired of watchin’ her mope around this town like she’s a
whipped dog.  I’m sick of hearing her crying in the night when she thinks
nobody is listening to her.  It’s horrible to watch her try to force a
smile and act happy when she’s at work for the sake of appearances.  If
she loses one more pound, I’m terrified a strong wind will blow her away. 
Pull yourself together, man, and be the guy she needs.  She still loves
you.  With work -
hard
work - you could earn her trust back. 
I can tell you that you already have her love.  Like you, nothing seems to
kill that.  The question is, are you willing to put in the effort it will
take?  Or, are you going to take the coward’s way out and let her finally
end up with a man she could never love as much as you?”

Hearing how much Faith
was hurting broke his heart, and thinking of her moving on and finding someone
else was enough to make his stomach turn. 

Watching his face turn
green, Honor nodded her satisfaction.  “
That
got your
attention.  I guess you hadn’t given any thought to Faith moving on with
her life with someone else.  It could and
will
eventually happen if
you don’t pull your head from between your legs,” she warned.

“Is she seeing
anybody?” he asked through lips that barely moved.  God, the thought of
another man putting his hands on Faith made him killing mad.  Which was
not a great feeling since he was the reason she was single again.  He had
no proprietary rights where she was concerned, but he couldn’t help feeling
like she still belonged to him.

“Not yet.” 
Smiling as Cain’s shoulders relaxed slightly, Honor nudged the swing into
motion again with her foot.  “If you want to keep it that way, I have a
proposition for you to consider.” 

“What?” he asked
reluctantly, turning to stare at her impassive face.  He could almost see
the wheels spinning in her clear blue eyes.  That was a dangerous, scary
experience when it came to the McKinnon girls.  All four of them were
fully capable of screwing a man’s world to hell and back.  He had
firsthand experience with their talents.

“I want you to come
work at the café,” Honor stated calmly. 

“Now look who went and
swallowed a crazy pill… or a bottle of ‘em!” Cain exclaimed, shaking his head
as he stared at her with confused horror. 

“I’m quite sane,” Honor
replied evenly.  “We need a bouncer - someone that I trust to keep
both
Faith and Patience safe at night.  Last night was the first brawl we’ve
had, but business has picked up considerably since the state ran the interstate
through here last year.  We’ve been attracting a fair share of truckers
and travelers not from the area.  Then, of course, there are the students
from Rutledge’s campus up the road.  Things are getting busier and we
could use the extra security.  You’ve already told me that you don’t
intend to go back to the hospital.  At least, not yet.  Well, Abel
was right; you are qualified for more than medicine.  You were a
soldier.  You can put those skills to good use by protecting my sisters at
night.”

“Honor…”

“It would also offer
you an opportunity to make amends with Faith, Cain,” she pointed out
quietly.  “Even if you don’t want a relationship with her any longer, you
owe it to her to give this thing between you some kind of resolution. 
Goodness, Cain, she never even got a chance to slap you in the face and call
you a jerk.  You can give her that much closure, can’t you?”

Licking his lips, Cain
was tempted.  It was a chance to be near Faith… to breathe in her scent
and watch her move again.  He hadn’t realized just how desperately he
missed that until Honor extended her offer.  “She won’t want me there,” he
felt obligated to say, knowing even as he spoke the words that he was making
the understatement of the century.  Faith would
hate
seeing him
again.

“No, she won’t,” Honor
agreed.  “It’s up to you to change that, not me.  It’s my job to make
certain that nothing like what happened to her last night happens again. 
That’s all I’m doing – protecting my sister.”

“The hell you
are.  You’re trying to play matchmaker,” Cain chided, a small smile
curling his lips.

Shrugging daintily,
Honor tilted her blonde head and stared at him.  “Does that mean you’ll do
it?”

Cain thought about it
for a minute, mulling the possible repercussions over in his mind.  What
the hell?  Faith couldn’t hate him any more than he already hated
himself.  “Yeah.  I’ll try it.”