Table of Contents
Also by T. L. Haddix
Genealogy Chart
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Also by T. L. Haddix
Streetlight Graphics Publishing
A division of Streetlight Graphics
Snapdragon Way
Copyright © 2015 by Tabatha L. Haddix. All rights reserved.
First Edition: September 2015
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Streetlight Graphics Publishing, a division of Streetlight Graphics.
Also by T. L. Haddix
The Firefly Hollow Series:
Firefly Hollow
Butterfly Lane
Dragonfly Creek
Cattail Ridge
Cricket Cove
Stormking Road
Fern Valley
Snapdragon Way
The Shadows Collection:
Secrets in the Shadows
Under the Moon’s Shadow
Shadows from the Grave
Hidden in the Shadows
In the Heart’s Shadow
Deception in the Shadows
Seduction in the Shadows
Redemption in the Shadows
Writing as Mallory Love:
Capturing Colleen (Sunset Motel, Book One)
Seducing Samantha (Sunset Motel, Book Two)
You can connect with T.L. on Facebook and her website:
www.tlhaddix.com
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Genealogy Chart
Chapter One
July.
In all the times when he’d imagined how he’d die, there’d been noise and gunfire and violent smoke that choked his breath. Sharp knives, rivers of blood, horrific screams, staccato gunfire, and for lack of a better term, war.
But as Eli Campbell lay on his back, unable to breathe thanks to the crushing pain in his chest, his leg pinned to the ground by the armored vehicle that had overturned on a test drive, he almost felt like laughing. Of course death hadn’t come the way he’d thought it would. Nothing else in his life had gone according to plan. Why should this?
The men who’d been on the drive with him and the guys back at the base were running toward him, yelling though he couldn’t make out the words. He waved at them with his right arm, trying to indicate that he was fine, that there was nothing they could do, but they ignored him. He wasn’t gone yet, but he knew it wouldn’t be long. There was no other reason for him to see what he was seeing.
“Why are you here?” he asked the man standing beside the vehicle, staring down at him. “Come to gloat? To see me off?”
His brother Noah’s face filled with fury and outrage. “Don’t you dare die on me, you son of a bitch! You think you’re going to get away with that? No. Hell, no. You’re not doing that to Mom and Dad, to Molly. To Grandma and Grandpa. And you’re not doing that to me. We haven’t fixed things yet. You hear me, Eli? Get your ass up. Come on, Eli! Get up, damn it!”
The despair on his brother’s face broke his heart. As Noah ranted and raved at him, pacing, never taking his eyes from Eli’s, regret tore into him. What Noah had said was true. They’d never had a chance to fix things, not really.
So much of what had happened was his fault. Noah wasn’t innocent, not entirely, as he was a stubborn ass who had trust issues, but the majority of the blame for the rift in their relationship sat firmly on Eli’s shoulders. Hell, if he was speaking bluntly, probably a good deal of Noah’s trust issues stemmed from his relationship with Eli. That was another regret Eli was going to carry to the grave, it appeared.
He could have done something about the rift between them several times over the last four years since his wife Erica had died. He just hadn’t. He didn’t like admitting he was wrong.
He regretted that now that he wouldn’t have a chance to make amends. “I’m sorry, Noah,” he whispered. “I should have tried. Tell everyone I’m sorry.”
Though Noah was still shouting at him, he was fading away. In his place, a growing, searing, agonizing pain was making its way up Eli’s body.
“He’s losing a lot of blood.” His captain cursed virulently as the team of medics worked to get a collar on Eli’s neck, a board under his back. “Get that tourniquet on there as tight as you can. Otherwise, as soon as we lift the truck, he’ll bleed out.”
Within seconds, a tight band formed around his leg just below the knee, and the agony of it made him scream.
“Hold on, Campbell. Just hold on, you hear me? We’ll get you out of this,” the captain said. “Ready?”
Eli couldn’t draw enough breath to answer him. All his energy was focused on not passing out.
When the captain nodded to the rest of the team, half of them lifted the truck and the other half scooted the board under Eli, simultaneously pulling him out from under the vehicle.
For a brief instant, the pain that had him sweating was gone, vanished as though it had never been. But then it rushed back, ten times worse than it ever was before, and everything went black.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! Get him to the ambulance. We don’t have any time to waste if we want a prayer of a chance of saving that leg,” he heard one of the medics say as he faded out. “Where’s the chopper?”
When he became aware of his surroundings again he wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he thought it hadn’t been a short time. His head was foggy but he managed to clear it enough to figure out he was in the air. The steady thrum of the engines echoed through the aircraft, and a firm hand touched his forehead. Another clasped his hand.
“Sergeant Campbell, can you hear me? If you can, squeeze my hand.” A man’s voice, calm and steady.
Eli squeezed or tried to. He couldn’t tell whether he’d moved or not, but he must have succeeded because the voice responded.
“Good. You’re on your way to Germany. You’ve been injured, but you’re stable. Are you in any pain?”
It took several attempts, but he managed a hoarse “no.” Far from feeling pain, he was numb all over, buzzed. They must have given him something. Everything was blurry when he tried to open his eyes. Deciding that might require too much energy, he kept them closed. Something told him he’d be better off that way, and he’d learned to listen to his gut instinct over the years.
“Try to rest, Sergeant. We’ll be there before you know it.”
“Family?” he asked carefully.
“They’ve been notified.”
Eli nodded or thought he did. They’d be on their way to Germany, then. His mind flew back to seeing Noah beside him at the site of the wreck. Maybe he was imagining all this, and he was dead and didn’t realize it.
“Should have asked him,” he mumbled.
“What was that, sir?” the man asked.
“My brother. Should have asked him what it was like, being dead. Never thought to do that before. Never thought of a lot of things.”
Eli sighed, letting the drugs take over. If he was dead, there’d be plenty time to figure that out, he guessed.
Chapter Two
He couldn’t move. He needed to move, needed to pace. Needed to run his hands through his hair, tug on the ends, curse. He needed to feel the solidness of oak or mahogany beneath his palms as he worked it, turning it from little more than raw lumber into a work of art. And Noah Campbell couldn’t do any of that.
Instead, he had to remain in his seat thanks to the turbulence they’d encountered, grip the arms tightly, and try not to lose his mind. It wasn’t flying or the travel that bothered him but the reason for it. Eli was hurt. And if Noah let himself think…
His mother’s soft hand on his pulled him away from the hard focus he had on his tension. “How can I help?”
Noah blew out a hard breath. “I’m fine. Are you?”
Zanny smiled though worry lines bracketed her mouth. “I will be. And so will Eli. We have to believe that.”
“Yeah. We do.” He glanced across her to the middle row of seats where his sister Molly and their father John sat. Molly was asleep, her head on John’s shoulder. As though feeling the weight of Noah’s gaze, John turned his head. He lifted his chin in greeting and sent them a thumbs-up, but Noah could see he was deeply concerned and not just about Eli.
Yesterday afternoon, Noah had scared everyone in the family nearly to death when he’d seen Eli lying on the ground, dying. It was the most traumatic vision by far that Noah had ever had, and it had terrified his parents as much as the news about Eli.
Ever since he was little, Noah had been able to see things so-called “normal” people weren’t open to seeing. He’d been four years old when he’d first started communicating with someone from the other side—his cousin Moira, who’d died before his father had even been born. The ability was one he’d inherited through his mother, one that had come as quite a surprise to everyone in the family, and that was even considering how unusual the Campbells were.
Over the years, he’d learned to deal with the ability. Sometimes it got the upper hand, but most of the time Noah was able to keep things in check. Eighteen hours ago, however, that ability had literally knocked him to his knees when he’d seen Eli.
Seeing his brother so gravely injured was the worst, most disturbing vision he’d ever had. There’d only been a couple of times over the years that Noah had felt such gut-wrenching despair, and none of the previous visions he’d experienced had in any way prepared him for what he’d gone through in John and Zanny’s backyard. He could go his entire life and never experience it again, and he’d die a happy man.
Certain Eli was gone, he’d been emotionally paralyzed by what he’d seen. It wasn’t until two hours later when his father had managed to get through to Eli’s commanding officer and find out the details of the accident that Noah had really started to recover, to come out of the fog the vision had left him in.
“He’s not dead,” John said, shaking Noah by his shoulders as he repeated the words over and over again until they started to penetrate Noah’s mind. “Do you hear me? He’s alive. He’s hurt, but he’s alive. Come on, Noah. You have to come back to us. We’re going to meet him in Germany, but I need you to come back to us first.”
The last few hours were a blur of time that was filled with short, crystal-clear instances. A glance at his watch told him they still had four more hours to go before they reached Germany, assuming there weren’t any delays. Noah didn’t know if he could handle it. He knew if he kept thinking about how much time there was left, he’d come out of his skin.
His mother, God bless her, realized how close he was to coming apart. “Tell me about what you’re working on right now,” she suggested.
Noah scowled with impatience. “Mom…”
“Details, Noah. Describe all the little things.”
Telling himself to cool it, to not take his anxiety out on his mother, he sat forward as much as the seat would allow and started talking. “It’s a big kitchen, huge really. Cherry cabinets, slightly distressed with a gallery rail around the top. She wants to show off her geegaws.”
When a soft laugh escaped Zanny, he looked at her with surprise. She grinned at him, her eyes slightly damp, and touched his hair. “My sweet boy. You’re such a man. Geegaws.”
Noah felt his own lips quirk upward, forming the smile he’d gotten from her, the smile she’d given to all her children. “That’s what they are, things to dust around and break. Anyhow, she wants tall cabinets on the top, mostly drawers on the bottom which is sensible. Drawers are easier to access.”
He ran a small, custom cabinet and woodworking shop, and while kitchens weren’t exciting or particularly challenging, they were his bread and butter. Doing them allowed him the time and money during the off-season to play with the carvings and intricate woodworking that spoke to his heart.
“What kind of countertop?” Zanny asked, shifting to get more comfortable.
Noah sat back, letting out a sigh. “Granite, of course. Miserable rock to have to work with, even though I only have to work around it. And she wants this ridiculous shade of green… says it matches her eyes and that’s what her husband wants.”
His mother coughed. “How romantic. You don’t like the client?”
He shrugged. How in the world to explain to his mother that the woman was a bored housewife who was more interested in chasing him around the room than she was in getting her kitchen redone, a chase that Noah had firmly rebuffed several times? “She’s a professional housewife whose husband writes her checks to keep her occupied. I simply want to get the job done.”
“Ah.” Zanny rubbed his shoulder. “You do good work, regardless of whether it’s for bored housewive
s or widows and orphans.”
This time, the laugh was Noah’s. “Thanks, I think.”
“So what else are you working on? And remember, I want details.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Why? You thinking of finally letting me redo the kitchen at the house?”
“Maybe. It’s about time. And I promise I won’t make you match the countertops to my eyes. Talk.”
So he did. For most of the rest of the flight, he talked about his projects. He explained what he’d had in mind for years about the kitchen she was reluctant to have redone. He talked until his voice was hoarse, his throat was raw.
By the time they got to Germany, even he was bored with the discussion on cabinetry. But he hadn’t come out of his skin, and he felt like he could breathe again, and as far as he was concerned, that was a checkmark for the win column.
Chapter Three
A soft, persistent beeping sank into his brain first, a sharp counterpoint to the rustling of the pillow when he moved his head. Somewhere nearby people were talking. They weren’t whispering either, and Eli frowned. Didn’t they understand that he was tired? That his body wanted him to rest?
“There you are,” a woman’s voice said. “We were starting to think you were going to sleep all day on us, Sergeant Campbell. How about you open those eyes for me? You have some people here who’re anxious to see you.”
When he tried to respond, his mouth felt as thick as cotton, and all he could do was grunt.
“Are you having any pain?” the woman asked. “Can you tell me where your pain is?”
“No.” It wasn’t that he didn’t hurt but that he couldn’t figure out where to say he hurt worse—at the moment his left shoulder, his entire chest, and his left leg were all vying for the top spot. “It all hurts.”