Crossings: A Sovereign Guardians Novel (2 page)

I immediately uncurled my fingers and held my hands loose at my sides if only to prove to him that he had no effect on me whatsoever. But I couldn't stop the thoughts swirling in my head.

How dare he call me
sweetheart
and
love
and then have the audacity to say I didn't belong at Fairvue when all I had ever wanted was to come home! The more rational part of me reasoned that maybe I shouldn't be on the defensive. Maybe in some warped way Keller meant his remarks as a compliment, but I wasn't listening to that part of my mind at the moment. I was still bristling over the part where he'd said
a girl like me
. He didn't know me at all. He had no right to make any type of judgments about what was best for me.

Gran had given him such an affectionate smile earlier. What if he was someone she might listen to for advice? If his advice was going to be for her to send me back to boarding school where I'd already wasted a good portion of my life, well,I'd have to make sure he wasn't in any position to give an opinion.

"You," I spat, "know nothing about me."

Keller reached out and brushed my hair away from my face. His strong fingers tucked it behind my ear. I could feel the cold silver of his ring against my cheek.

His breath was warm against my face as he leaned in to whisper. "Come now, angel. You have to know a girl like you doesn't belong in a place like this. There's something different about you. Something special. Any fool can see it the moment they look, and you already know I've been looking."

He leaned slightly away and let his eyes roam over my body and then back up to my face. "Maybe I should say I've been
admiring
your qualities for only a short amount of time, but even a total stranger like me can tell that you're something special and you definitely don't belong here, sweetheart."

My cheeks were burning. I was shocked by how bold he was, but there was a flip side to my feelings. I should have been shocked by everything he was saying to me, but I wasn't because I couldn't erase the thought from my mind that I could easily say the same words about him.

Keller didn't belong here.

He was too handsome, too full of energy, too
everything
to be here.

But he was wrong about me. I did belong. He was the stranger. He was the one who didn't fit in.

I managed to find my voice and answer in what I hoped was a normal tone, one that didn't show how hard it had become for me to focus when he was near.

"Look, Keller, I don't know you, and you really don't know me, no matter what stories you've heard. So let's not pretend we're
besties
who share our deepest, darkest secrets. The only special thing about me is that I'm the person here today who just saw her father being lowered into the ground."

The words came out harsher than I'd intended, but I knew I had made my point when a shadow crossed over his face, and he finally stepped away from me.

"Of course, you're right. Please, forgive my total lack of manners and do accept my most sincere condolences."

Keller's quick apology left me feeling like I should give him one of my own for my shrewish behavior, but I bit my tongue before I could make the expected reciprocal remarks. I wasn't about to say I was sorry when I'd done nothing wrong.

My whole life I'd spent trying to apologize to my father for being born and ruining his life. I was done saying I was sorry.

Surprisingly, I noted his voice sounded sincere when he spoke again.

"Will you tell Ms. Ellie I'll be over later to check on her?" He nodded his head in the direction of Gran, and she smiled at him when she saw him looking her way. The gesture should have soothed me. After all, Gran was the one person in the world I trusted, but instead the obvious familiarity between the two of them had the opposite effect.

"There's no need," I blurted out. "I'll be there with Gran if she needs anything. I assure you I can take care of whatever needs to be handled."

Keller's face relaxed. My declaration seemed to amuse him. A small smile tugged at his lips, and the hint of a dimple appeared at the right corner. His entire face was transformed with that smile. If I had thought he was handsome before, it was nothing compared to when he was smiling.

I had the sudden feeling he was thinking about something entirely different when he agreed.

"I'm sure you can take care of anything that needs handling quite well. But you haven't been around for awhile, sugar, and tonight is my normal night to stop by and check on things. I take my duties to your grandmother very seriously. Especially with all she's been through lately."

I should have been glad Gran had not been alone during my father's illness, but knowing some virtual stranger seemed to know more about what was happening with my own grandmother's personal affairs than I did, well, it simply didn't leave me with a good feeling.

I should have been home for Gran. But not for my father. Never for my father.

If only I had known he'd been having heart trouble, I would have come earlier to have helped her through everything. If I hadn't shown up unannounced, I wondered if someone would have simply called me after the funeral was already over. Gran's excuse that she didn't want me to worry was the only reason she'd given for not contacting me.

But we both knew the real reason. My father had asked her not to call.

Even now I couldn't explain the strong feeling that urged me to come home. I'd arrived too late to talk to my father but in time to be a comfort to her at least.

Looking at Keller I knew there was no way I could physically stop him from checking on Gran, but I wasn't going to pretend to be happy about his familiarity with my only family and what I perceived to be his interference in matters that weren't really his concern now that I was here.

"If you insist on stopping by, I won't stand in your way," I said, knowing I shouldn't interfere if Gran wanted Keller to be there.

I took a step closer, waiting to see if he would back down. Wishing he would. Wishing he wouldn't.

I wasn't really surprised when he stood his ground.

"You should understand, I'm planning to stay here. Permanently," I specified. "Gran may not need your help now that I'm here to stay."

Keller's smile was gone. The expression on his face unreadable. His eyes were so dark I could see my reflection in their depths. The low timber of his voice was an unpleasant growl when he spoke.

"Stubborn. I'd heard that about you." His eyes flicked to my hair. "Fiery red hair matching that fiery red temper, no doubt. But you're the one who needs to understand some things because you have no idea, sweetheart, how much you're going to need my help before all of this is over."

He didn't wait for my response but spun on his heel and stormed off towards a black Ford truck parked at the edge of the drive.

I flinched when he slammed the truck door, knowing the anger behind the motion was directed solely at me.

What on earth had just happened?

There was something about Keller Jones, other than being incredibly handsome, that made him seem as wicked as sin. And even worse, despite my verbal protests, I wasn't sure I'd be better off staying away from him.

Deep in thought, I didn't notice at first that Gran had approached me. She placed her hand on top of my arm, and my attention was slowly drawn back to the woman at my side and away from the spot where Keller's truck was quickly disappearing down the drive.

I tried to shake off my feelings of unease. Gran needed all of my attention. She had been there for me even when I hadn't been with her. Despite the fact that my father remained my guardian and limited what she could do for me, she always let me know she was there in the things she did like writing me letters so I wasn't the only student away from home with no one who cared. And despite my father's objections, she made sure I had somewhere to visit on holiday breaks when I was younger, before my father put a stop to even those. When there were times I felt sorry for myself, all I had to do was think of Gran. At least I had her.

She gave me a quick hug, and the remaining tension slowly left my body.

"Are you ready to say your final goodbyes, Pagan?" Her eyes moved to the recently dug grave and simple headstone shared with my mother's name which was now my father's final resting place.

"Of course, Gran."

I linked my arm through the crook of hers, and we walked back together. I was doing this for her. Even at his death, I had nothing to say to him.

The last time I'd seen my father was four years ago. I was thirteen and had been kicked out of a small boarding school in Chattanooga. I'd taken a bus to Nashville and then hitched a ride the rest of the way home. The reception I'd received upon my unannounced visit and reckless expedition caused anything but good feelings between us.

Even now I still remembered every word he said to me that night when I'd opened the front door and entered the house.

"What are you doing here, Pagan?" He looked down at me from his six-foot frame as I stood there in the foyer of our home. Arms crossed. No welcoming hug for the prodigal daughter's return. I didn't know what to say, and he really didn't want an answer.

"Your grandmother was going to drive to the school tomorrow and bring you to Fairvue. This latest fiasco, was a prank no doubt designed to get you kicked out of yet another school. You do realize we will eventually run out of schools that will accept someone with your reputation for trouble, don't you? At least this one promised us you could stay until someone could come and collect you. Something you apparently decided you couldn't do."

I dropped my duffel bag on the floor and faced the man who I knew was my father even though he looked little like me. The gray-blue eyes staring back at me were our only similarity. Where I was fair, he was dark. There was no hint of auburn in his brown hair that was only beginning to be flecked with gray. Other than the color of our eyes, the one thing we did have in common was our personalities.

We were both stubborn.

I never backed down from a challenge and neither did he. It wasn't the ideal combination for father-daughter bonding. Yet even then, on that night, I had known it was more than stubbornness which separated us.

The real problem was that, except for my eyes, I was the identical image of my mother.

That mirror like reflection was the reason he couldn't stand to look at me. The resemblance alone was enough to make him never want to see me. Not because he hadn't loved my mother. But because he had. He had loved her desperately. Obsessively.

Looking at me, seeing her reflected in me, it wasn't a comfort to him. Instead it was a constant reminder of what he had lost. And even worse than my resemblance, in his mind, was my very existence. I was the true cause of his unbearable loss. She had died while I was being born, and for that I would never be forgiven. Because of that, our relationship was forever broken.

Talking to my father wasn't something I wanted to do, but my stubbornness demanded I defend myself. My voice only shook a little as I answered back.

"No one made me leave, but no one stopped me either. Maybe you shouldn't have sent me to a school you have to pay for where they don't even notice when one of their students is missing."

My father was done being a statue. He began pacing the room like a caged tiger waiting for his moment to pounce.

"Oh, they knew alright, young lady. Which is why I got a phone call at midnight saying you had left without permission, and from what they could tell from the scribbled note you left, you were going to hop a bus in the middle of the night and head straight for home. It was only at my assurance that I was not holding them responsible in any way for your irresponsible behavior that I managed, again, to keep the police from being involved in yet another one of your ridiculous antics. For once I almost wish I had bought you a phone, so I could have called you and told you not to even bother to come here. This time, Pagan, you've gone too far."

The muscles in his neck bulged as he spoke. His voice had grown louder with each word he'd hurled at me. The gauntlet had been thrown, and I was ready to pick it up.

Neither of us would ever know what might have happened next if Gran hadn't come down the stairs.

She seemed to take in everything. Most likely she had heard most of it. The walls of Fairvue were over two hundred years old, and sound carried easily in the pre-Civil War home, especially voices raised in anger.

I admired her that night. How she had walked between her own son and her only grandchild and without hesitation enveloped me in the warmth of her arms, knowing he would not be happy, but showing her love for me all the same. I had never wished as much as I did that night that it was my grandmother who had been given custody of me when my mother died. Why he wouldn't let her have me, when I knew she had asked, always confused me. Maybe it was simply one more way he could hurt me like I had hurt him since the day I was born.

Despite the warmth of her greeting, I was still primed for a fight, but somehow she gave me the strength to calm the erratic beating of my heart.

I didn't see my father leave that night, but I heard him.