Chapter 19
Cal wanted to walk outside the convent, out the gate, and head away from this place. Away from Io. And he couldn’t. Not with the electronic surveillance directed at the grounds. It would put Io at risk if he got tagged and that wasn’t an option.
He needed to move, though, and it wasn’t as if he could roam the abbey.
The sisters would probably toss him out on his ear if he tried.
The substructure? KW was upstairs working on a plumbing leak and Cal couldn’t imagine any of the nuns going down there.
Moving as quietly and as covertly as possible, he went to the door, flipped the light switch, and descended into the stone-lined corridors of the basement.
The cooler, damp air surrounded him, but the smell reminded him too much of the tunnel. And the tunnel made him think of graves. Of burials. Of being trapped underground.
Quickening his pace, he strode along the basement hall.
Cal wanted to check out completely, but he was too well trained.
He memorized his path through the labyrinth under the convent.
As thick as the dust was on the floor, he probably couldn’t lose himself down here even if he tried, but that was an indulgence. One he couldn’t take.
Cal knew two things. One, he wouldn’t leave Io on her own and unprotected. Two, a man couldn’t outrun the past no matter how far he went.
A low archway forced him to duck a little to clear it and he found himself facing a blank wall. He’d reached the end of the line. An old pew, maybe a remnant from the abbey’s chapel, leaned against the wall, a slat missing from the seat and the wooden back gone completely.
Returning the way he came felt too overwhelming and Cal gingerly lowered himself to the bench. It held his weight and he leaned back, using the wall to support him.
The silence down here was total. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was the last person on Earth. Maybe he needed that illusion for a while, long enough to regain the control he’d lost in the library.
He hadn’t spoken Elena’s name in years.
Not because he’d forgotten her. He’d never forget her, not if he lived to be a thousand. It still hurt to think of her. To remember her. To know she’d died too young.
Her birthday, the anniversary of her death. Those days were brutal.
Huffing out a breath, he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, and stared at the stone floor. No one had swept down here in a really long time. Maybe decades, but the large convent was a lot to take care of, especially when it was deteriorating around the sisters.
It was only a momentary distraction. Elena was too close and he couldn’t push her away.
Her dark hair, the way it was always falling into her face and how much that annoyed her.
The way her brown eyes seemed to hold both wisdom and naivety.
And her stubbornness. She and Io shared that trait, although his wife had learned to temper it, to listen, consider, and then reevaluate before making a decision.
Elena and Io had other things in common. An adventurous spirit, the need to test boundaries, the interest in physically demanding activities. Cal had learned to ease his pace when he and Io ran together—not because she lagged, but because she’d match him stride for stride even when she shouldn’t.
Cal dropped his head into his hands. Io wasn’t going to let this go. No matter how abrupt he was, no matter if he told her the topic was off limits or not, she’d still push. And until she got answers, she’d continue to raise Elena’s name.
He didn’t think he could handle that.
Which left him with only one alternative. Share the truth about Elena with Io.
The idea was enough to have him sitting upright and slumping back against the wall again. Just thinking of Elena made his heart hurt. How could he talk about her? About what losing her had done to him?
How could he tell Io that it was his fault Elena was dead?
Fuck. He didn’t want to dredge up the past. He didn’t want to share all this with Io. Why did she have to be so tenacious?
And why did the very things about her that scared the hell out of him be the things that attracted him to her?
Io was right. He knew who and what she was from the start.
She’d been upfront about her career, about how much she loved it.
And she was right about something else. If he couldn’t live with her the way she was, he shouldn’t have texted and video chatted with her almost every day.
And he definitely shouldn’t have gone to California when he had leave and spent weeks with her.
Cal had been helpless to resist, though.
Iona Desmond had wormed her way into his heart fast. Her spark, her laugh, the way they enjoyed the same things. Even the shadows that sometimes lingered in her eyes had pulled him in because he had his own shadows. Not just from his time in the military, but from what had happened with Elena.
Yeah, he’d fallen in love with Io hard and fast. He still loved her, would always love her. No one else ever fit him the way she did. Cal had been happier with her than he’d been in his entire life.
Until he began to worry about losing her.
He couldn’t go through that again. Cal had barely endured Elena’s death. Losing Io would be on a whole other level.
He’d made the decision. Better to walk away than to hang around and watch her die.
But being with her again? It made him wonder if the trade-off was worth it because he’d still lost her.
Io gave Cal an hour. When he didn’t return to the library, she went looking for him. He wasn’t wandering around the abbey—it would be too disrespectful to the sisters—and he wouldn’t risk going outside because of the surveillance. That left her with one location.
The basement. Or as the men referred to it, the substructure.
When she opened the door to the stairs and saw the lights were on, she knew she was on the right track. This level was a maze, but once she got deep enough into the interior, his footprints were on the only ones in the thick dust.
She found him at the far end, sitting on a broken pew.
It was no surprise he heard her coming, that he was alert and watching the entrance to the room he was in. His expression was guarded, but there was something else in his eyes, something that made her heart twist for him. Grief.
Over Elena?
Io took the seat beside him, holding her breath until the bench held both their weights. She gave him a minute, but when he sat there silently, she asked, “Are you ready to talk?”
“No.”
“I can wait.”
Cal made a noise that was half laugh, half sigh. “I know.”
She wasn’t sure how to take that, so she let the quiet settle again.
Their shoulders brushed, the small bench too narrow to prevent it, but Io didn’t think she would shift over even if she could.
Something about Cal screamed for the touch of another person, and when he didn’t try to put distance between them, she knew she was right.
Reaching over, she took his hand and laced their fingers.
Just being a decent human being, Io assured herself. It had nothing to do with her feelings for Cal. She wouldn’t allow it.
Instead of pulling free, he squeezed. For a moment it was tight, and then he relaxed his grip. Probably worried he’d hurt her, although he hadn’t.
“Who’s Elena?” she asked quietly when the silence had lingered long enough.
“You’re not going to drop it, are you?”
“No. How’d she die?”
He stiffened, but he didn’t pull his hand free. After a silence long enough that she didn’t think he’d answer, Cal said, “She drowned.”
Io squeezed his hand and stayed quiet.
“It’s my fault.”
His admission was choked, soft, ragged, as if the words had come out against his will. Io didn’t speak, just stroked his hand with her thumb—offering comfort—and waited.
It was a long time before Cal’s body relaxed and he leaned back. “Elena is—was my sister. My older brother was at college, my younger brother was at football practice, and my parents were at work. I was sixteen and it was my responsibility to take care of her. I fucked up.”
Io’s brain whirled. This was more than Cal had ever told her about his family and she was curious, but she focused on the important part.
“How’d you fuck up?” When it became clear he wasn’t giving her any more information, she prodded him. “What happened, Cal?”
Another huffed sigh before he said, “It was still warm. School hadn’t started yet, although pee-wee football practice had. Elena’s friends were going swimming at a nearby quarry, and since I was in charge, she asked me for permission. I told her no.”
“Of course you did. Quarries are dangerous to swim in.”
Cal nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her.
His gaze was fixed firmly on the wall to his left.
Which made sense because she was sitting on his right.
Io waited, but the fact that he’d said as much as he had told her she didn’t need to do any more prodding.
She was going to get the story. It just might take a while.
“She was fourteen, which meant there was crying, yelling, and when I didn’t relent, she stormed into her room and slammed the door. I figured she’d sulk until Mom and Dad got home. I went outside to shoot baskets in front of the house to release some tension.”
Those sentences didn’t make complete sense, but Io knew Cal and was able to put the pieces together. “And while you were shooting baskets, she snuck out of the house and went to the quarry anyway.”
Cal nodded. “She wouldn’t have died if I stayed inside the house. Shooting baskets was a stupid impulse, one I should have resisted. I should have known she’d sneak out.”
“Was that something she did often? Sneak out?”
“As far as I know, it was the first time.”
Io let the silence sit for a stretch before she said, “It wasn’t your fault, Cal.
No, let me finish. You did everything right.
You told her no, and while you weren’t inside the house, you were directly in front of it, there if anything happened.
You weren’t being irresponsible. You didn’t take off to shoot baskets at a friend’s house. You were there.”
“I should have stayed in the house,” he insisted. “I would have caught her going to the door.”
“Or she would have crawled out her window and you still wouldn’t have known she snuck out. If she was determined, there were a dozen ways she could have circumvented anything you tried unless you sat at her side.”
“Then I should have done that.”
Damn, Cal really believed he could control what happened.
“Because what fourteen-year-old girl doesn’t want her brother glued to her side, especially when she’s mad as hell at him?
” Io ran her thumb across his hand again.
“Maybe if she had a habit of sneaking out, then you could blame yourself, but she didn’t.
How were you supposed to know that this was the one day she would deviate from her usual behavior? ”
“She was my baby sister. I was supposed to keep her safe. She died on my watch.”
Io leaned into Cal’s shoulder, trying to comfort him. “You did everything a reasonable person could expect you to do. You did everything right. Sometimes bad things still happen no matter how responsible you are.”
Shaking his head, Cal said, “I should have done more.”
“Did your parents blame you for her death?” She couldn’t keep her ferocity hidden.
Another shake of his head. “No, Thing, they didn’t. They absolved me. Said I did what I could.”
“Your family doesn’t blame you, but you can’t stop blaming yourself.”
No reply, but Io didn’t push this time. What he said in the library suddenly made more sense. His overprotectiveness, the fact that he’d ended their marriage rather than—as he put it—standing over her grave.
Io understood her job had a level of risk, but if Cal had accepted her compromise, that would have been minimal.
“What was Elena like?” Io asked softly.
Cal’s lips curved briefly. The smile didn’t last. “You would have liked her, I think. The two of you would have had enough in common to be friends. She was curious about everything. She used to talk about all the places she wanted to travel to when she was older. All the things she wanted to try someday.” Now he looked at her. “She had your adventurous spirit.”
And that’s why he was scared of losing her, because she had a few things in common with his sister. But if Elena had lived, Io bet she would have outgrown the hormonal impulsiveness that led her to sneaking out of the house in defiance of Cal.
“I bet we would have been friends. I wish I could have met her.”
“Me, too.” His voice was thick. “Me, too.”
“Earlier, in the library, you said something about not wanting to stand over my grave. That was because of Elena, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t live with losing you.”
There were a lot of different responses Io could make to that, but she didn’t know which one was the right one.
She settled for saying, “Come on, Cal. Let’s finish up in the library, so we can leave.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to walk through the tunnel after dark. That place creeps me out.”
Standing, Io held out her hand to him.
She didn’t take a breath until he clasped it and got to his feet. He released her, but stayed close until they reached the library.
Io didn’t know what it meant. She just took her seat and went back to reading the logbook.