Darlene Graham - An Accidental Family

“Come on.” He flicked the flashlight off and guided her to the fresher air outside the cave.

She had started to cry.

“It’s okay.” He held her firmly, feeling out of his depth. Crying females always made Seth want to hightail it to the barn, but he had to deal with this one. He had to find out exactly what this Rainey Chapman knew, what she’d seen. And he had to protect her. “Don’t you think the kids had some responsibility in this deal?” His voice was gentle as he ducked his head to look her in the face. “Nobody forced them to run away from the camp. They’re not exactly little.”

“They’re not adults, either,” she sniffed. “He looks mature, but Dillon’s only thirteen. And Maddy and Aaron are only eleven. They are children.”

“They look like pretty good-sized boys to me,” he said.

She straightened away from his embrace and her voice took on a note of fierce protectiveness. “These are damaged children who need special care.”

“Like some boundaries, maybe? They’re plenty old enough to know not to sneak out of the camp.” Seth was thinking about how he and Lane had both held down odd jobs by that age.

“Age has nothing to do with it. You can’t expect children to accept boundaries until they feel loved.”

Seth didn’t agree. He believed in accountability, even for kids. But this was hardly the place for a philosophical debate.

She mistook his silence for disapproval. “You can think whatever you like, but I am the one who’s responsible for these children. And it was I who handled this all wrong.”

Seth could understand how she was blaming herself for running off in a panic and searching for the children in the dark woods on her own, without notifying anyone. That was definitely a stupid thing to do. What he couldn’t understand was why she’d done it. But there would be time to sort out all the details when they got to the bottom of the hill.

“We’ve got to get you out of here.” He stuffed the flashlight in his vest and took hold of her arm, leading her forward on the ledge, craning his neck to look down the slope. “The moonlight’s too bright. They might see us on the footpath. We’ll have to stay under cover of trees. Think you can climb back down between those rocks?”

“I came up that way, didn’t I?”

He turned, and in the moonlight he could see her eyes. Again it struck him that they were very pretty.

“Just get me to that ambulance.” She met his gaze dead-on, even though there was quite a difference in their heights. “I need to see the boys right away.”

He was thinking how climbing up the open footpath with a flashlight and going down between the huge boulders in the dark were two different things, but all he said was, “Stay close then.”

As they climbed over the first of the large boulders he heard her suppress a little yelp. Instinctively, he reached back to her. “You okay?”

“I just slipped.”

“Here.” He bracketed her waist with his hands and helped her down. She felt like a tiny doll in his grasp. Her hot breath brushed against his temple as he lowered her to the ground, and he was startled by a surge of attraction.

He set her a respectable distance from him and decided keeping her engaged in talk would calm her—and him—down. “Ms. Chapman—”

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“The boys. They figured you’d come looking for them.” He glanced back up the dark wall of rock that rose above them. “What made you come all the way up here, anyway?”

“I’ve found them here before. Twice, actually.”

“Doing what?”

“Exploring the caves.” She sighed and swiped at her sweaty brow.

“Did you see anyone else on either of those nights?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“And what about tonight?”

“Nothing except the lights. I should have realized the boys’ flashlights wouldn’t be that bright. But all I could think about was finding them so I could get them back to camp before Lyle realized they were missing.”

“Lyle Hicks?” Seth had dealt with the officious jerk, who made a big deal out of the fact that he was in charge at Big Cedar Camp. The guy’s body language always screamed “hostile.” He crossed his arms like an umpire, issued demands, didn’t like to be inconvenienced. Seth could imagine the effect a guy like Lyle had on wayward boys. He decided that for Lyle Hicks, the embarrassment of having three kids picked up by the cops would undoubtedly be more of an issue than the kids themselves.

“Lyle.” Rainey lowered her head. “Lyle and I aren’t exactly singing on the same page of the songbook. I guess you know that most of the boys who end up at Big Cedar are wards of the state. All have behavioral problems. Many have physical problems, as well. I try to help them, but Lyle, he only wants to warehouse them. He’ll never let me live this down.”

“The guy’s a prick.”

Rainey’s head snapped up, the expression in her green eyes keen now. “Yeah. He is, actually. But how’d you know?”

“We’ve been called about incidents at the camp before. Lyle seems to be more worried about damage control than the kids. Once he asked me if the media monitored our police radios.” Seth took her hand and led her on. “Is Lyle the reason you didn’t report it when the boys ran off?”

“Partly. I thought it would be enough to chastise them.”

Chastise them? If it were up to Seth, he’d chastise their backsides. Coach Hollings and his famous paddle flashed to mind.

“You have to understand how harsh the system can be,” she added. “I didn’t want them to end up… I thought I was keeping them safe with me.”

“Right.” Seth’s tone was sarcastic. “Safe.”

He had pulled her along until they reached a dropoff. He lowered himself over the edge and put the shotgun on the ground to help her down off the rock. When she had her footing, he picked up the gun and pulled her into a narrow cleft between two giant boulders. “Stay close,” he said. “It gets a little rougher now.”

The claustrophobic passage was pitch-black and so treacherously steep that they were forced to half scramble, half slide down.

Rainey used her free hand to steady herself against Seth’s back, and her touch communicated tremors of fear.

“Can’t we turn on the flashlight yet?”

“No. Even between the rocks a beam might be seen. I know where I’m going.”

Seth could find his way through these passages with his eyes closed. From the time he was old enough to ride a bike, he and Lane had explored every nook and cranny of this part of the Kiamichi Range. And he had made many trips up and down this exact passage in the years since Lane’s death, sensing that the answer he sought— KayAnn Rawls’s bones—lay up at the top of these cliffs.

KayAnn Rawls. Her name filtered through the dark passageway like an echo that he couldn’t silence. KayAnn Rawls. The trouble had started with KayAnn Rawls. For years, Seth had made it his mission to find out what had happened to Lane’s girlfriend on the night she’d disappeared. He told himself he did it for Lane’s sake. But lately he wondered if he’d carried this obsession around for so long he couldn’t let go of it even if he wanted to.

And now these boys were involved in this mess. And this woman.

“We’re okay,” he reassured her. But in his mind he had to add, for now. Because navigating down this treacherous path was sure to be the least of their problems.

AS MUCH AS RAINEY LOATHED confined spaces, she had bigger worries. Inching her way between giant rocks that felt tighter than a tomb, she clung to the back of the cop’s vest and hoped she wasn’t making another stupid mistake.