Free Hall, Jessica by Into the Fire Page A

knew. He'd always known everything about her. But Isabel had
made her choices ten years ago, and so had he.
    "Gantry."
    Remy Duchesne's rasping voice echoed in the boathouse, but Caine
didn't look up from the hole he was patching on the port side of his fishing
boat. He'd been expecting a visit from his old boss all morning.
"Here."
    The old man walked across to join him, and studied the work in
progress. "You run into something with that?" He nodded not at the
boat but at Caine's right hand, which was swollen and gashed across three
knuckles.
    Caine thought about telling Remy about Billy, then looked up into
his ruined face and felt the old rage and shame crushing down on him, just as
heavy and immovable as ever. "Trap got wedged." He dropped the brush
back into the can of liquid sealant he was using to waterproof the patch and
stood up.
    Caine was bigger than anyone on the Atchafalaya, thanks to his bad
blood, and he had at least a foot and a half on Remy, who was short and
wire-thin. Still, when Caine looked at the twisted, raddled skin of his old
boss's face, he felt about six inches tall.
    Caine's father, Bud Gantry, had been the one who put those scars
on Remy Duchesne's face.
    "I need to talk to you," Remy said. "Just a
minute." Caine went down into the cabin and stepped into the tiny head,
then shut the door and leaned back against the wall.
    After Bud went to prison, Caine's mother, Dodie, had been free to
devote herself fully to the two things she had loved more than Bud—drinking and
screwing whoever bought her a drink. Dodie had died of liver failure a few
years later, leaving sixteen-year-old Caine an orphan.
    Even back then, everyone tried to look out for each other, but the
belligerent son of a bragging brute and a drunken whore didn't rate much
attention.
    It had been Remy Duchesne who had helped Caine bury his mother,
and then had offered him a job checking traps and taking tourists out. Maybe it
was because Caine had always lived like a wild thing, or that Remy had noticed
him hanging around the bait shop. Caine had been proud, and wanted to refuse,
but the opportunity to be closer to Sable had been irresistible.
    That had been all Caine had lived for—being close to Isabel
Duchesne. From the time she was a baby, he'd been spellbound by her. She was,
quite simply, the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.
    Caine had stayed with Remy and watched the old man's little girl
grow into a beautiful woman. He'd watched her win her
scholarship and head off to college, and had never said a word to her about how
he felt. Caine knew he'd never be good enough for her, but there was always a
little hope in his heart that someday she'd notice him. If he worked hard, and
lived right, maybe one day he could earn the right to take her out dancing
under the stars. It wasn't until the night that Sable ran away from Tulane that
he discovered how she truly felt about him.
    He saw Isabel run across the old weathered boards of the pier,
stopping only to grab a small empty crate. When she got to the boathouse, she
stood on the crate, opened the window, and hoisted herself through, then closed
it behind her.
    "Sable!" an angry voice called. "Where the hell are
you?"
    Caine watched from the shadows as Sable pressed back against the
wall. She was shaking, tears streaming down her face, and her hair and skin and
delicate lace dress—her mother's dress—were dripping with filth.
    He came up behind her, and put his big, bony hand over her mouth,
stifling the cry he knew she would make. "Shhh." He moved around her
until he stepped into the light from the window. "Just me."
    Sable closed her eyes and slumped against him.
    Caine had never held her in his arms before. It didn't matter that
she was covered from head to toe with muck. He was holding her, the girl he'd
loved for so long that he couldn't breathe without thinking of her. He held on
as long as he dared, then gently set her back to arm's length. "He do this
to you, chère?"
    "No." She