Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 62: Another Lake

-Caleb-

Wade was not my favorite person right now.

As he laid Jacey carefully down on the sofa and checked for even pupil dilation, I paced the rug anxiously.

“Sit down, Caleb,” Darren said after a while.

“She’s fine. Maybe a very mild concussion, but she shouldn’t need to see a doctor,” Wade muttered, putting his penlight away. He got out a needle and some thread-like substance. “Dissolving stitches,” he explained to me when I opened my mouth to ask. He concentrated on Jacey’s grazed arm, carefully sewing the wound shut.

“Look at her legs! What the hell happened?!” I demanded to know.

Jacey, Darren, and Wade all looked at me with failing patience on their faces. “They did get me out, Caleb,” she said.

“Yes, but look at you! You got shot!” I gestured at her arm.

“He was a bad agent. I’m sure we’ve run into a few before,” she sighed.

I snapped my attention to Darren. “A rogue agent shot my Jacey?!”

“It never occurred to me that he could be bought,” Darren said sadly. “I thought he was a good agent.”

“Well, obviously not. He shot Jacey!” I pointed out.

Darren nodded solemnly. “Obviously not.”

“Caleb, it happened. And I’m getting treated. It’s all okay now. We’re together,” Jacey said, reaching for my hand.

I went over and knelt beside the chair, taking her hand. “I won’t feel okay until Masterson is in prison. Maybe in hell.”

“Believe me, we’ve been tempted,” Wade muttered. “But we’re the good guys, and the good guys don’t just go around shooting people.”

“That’s unfortunate,” I grumbled.

“Some days, it is,” Darren agreed.

Jacey looked over at Darren. “How long do we get to stay here?”

“Hopefully, for the duration. I’m taking the bedroom down the hall, and there will be round the clock agents guarding the property. He’s going to have a lot more trouble snatching you next time, if he tries,” Darren said.

“More trouble? Can’t we just go somewhere where it would be impossible?” I asked.

“Nothing’s impossible, Caleb,” Darren sighed. “This is the absolute best we can do.”

“Great.” I grimaced but Jacey squeezed my hand.

“They’re doing their best, Caleb. You could still be in a Canadian prison, you know,” she reminded me.

I took her meaning and gave in with a long breath. “I wish the trial was happening tomorrow.”

“Don’t we all. But the law moves slowly, and we really want to nail this slippery bastard to the wall,” Wade said. “So that means even more slowly.”

Jacey squeezed my hand again when I groaned. “I think maybe it would be a good idea to get me an IUD, if that’s possible,” she requested softly. “If I’m not already pregnant.”

Darren and Wade stared at us.

“Honestly, Caleb, she’s nineteen years old. Don’t you ever learn?!” Darren yelled.

I winced. “He didn’t exactly provide us with condoms.”

“It would have killed you to keep it in your pants?” Darren scowled at me.

“It probably would have, yes,” I replied honestly.

Darren shook his head. “I don’t suppose you have any pregnancy tests with you, do you Wade?”

Wade rummaged in his duffel and pulled out two. “As soon as I finish here, you need to go pee on a stick,” he said to Jacey.

She nodded, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“I don’t suppose anyone’s ever made you sleep in the same space as your wife and expected you to keep your hands to yourself,” I grunted at Darren.

“You couldn’t have maybe taken the couch?” Darren suggested.

“Masterson likes to watch,” Jacey informed them. “If we didn’t perform, he might have separated us for good.” She bit her lip. “How is Will Jr.? Do you know?”

Darren looked pained. “He’s fine. Just living with the devil incarnate.”

“Oh. Yeah, just that.” She looked sad.

“All finished,” Wade said. “Off to the bathroom with you.”

I went with Jacey, but she shooed me out of the bathroom when I would have gone in with her. “Just give me a few seconds. Then you can come in.”

About two minutes later, Jacey called out, “Okay, you can come watch the lines with me!”

I walked into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub while Jacey sat on the toilet. We watched patiently for several minutes. Just one line appeared.

“Okay, we’re not pregnant,” I said, though I felt a little sad about that.

“No, we’re not.” She sounded both sad and relieved at the same time.

“Do you suppose Wade can place an IUD? We both know how I am with condoms.” I winced.

“Yeah, we should go see what Wade can do,” she said.

We wandered out of the bathroom with the negative pregnancy tests. Darren sagged with relief, and Wade nodded. “Good. No extra problems,” he commented.

“What do we do about getting Jacey an IUD?” I asked.

“Because you’re too important to wear a condom?” Darren snorted.

“No. Because I forget. We both do. We get caught up in the moment, and I just want to make sure the necessary precautions are taken,” I replied patiently.

“We’ll get a gynecological team in here as soon as possible,” Darren said. “I want them to give Jacey a proper physical anyway after having Will Jr. I don’t trust Masterson as far as I can throw him.”

“He had a private doctor taking care of her, but I like that idea,” I responded.

Jacey’s face scrunched up.

“What?” Darren asked.

“He killed the doctor,” she said. “Shot him because he couldn’t save Will when he committed suicide.”

“Any idea where the body is buried?” Wade asked.

She shook her head. “I was in the trunk of the car with the body. Then we stopped in the woods, and they buried him before taking me to Caleb. I couldn’t see my exact surroundings.”

“Damn. I’m sorry you had to experience that,” Darren said.

She shrugged. “It’s just another thing on the list of awful things that man has done or has allowed to be done.”

“Or has actively orchestrated,” I grumbled. “He’s a very, very bad man.”

“What did he have you do now?” Daren asked.

“Track people in shipping containers. Organize the wiping out of a village in Brazil so he can do some illegal logging in the rainforest there. You know. Just the fun stuff,” I snarked. “I have to say, the highlight was listening to someone get killed over the phone when a human trafficking shipment went bad. He had them all slaughtered.”

Darren nodded. “It’s good you overheard all that.”

“Overheard? Hell, I did some of it. He still has our parents—oh my God, our parents!” I gaped.

“We’ll do our best for them. As far as I know, they are still at Masterson’s estate with your brother, Timothy,” Darren said.

“You have to get them out of there, otherwise we can’t testify. He’ll kill someone!” I argued.

Wade snickered. “Oh, boy, you have a lot to learn about the legal system, kid.”

“What?” I asked. “What does the legal system have to do with our parents and our brother being in danger?”

“You just admitted to actively participating in several crimes. If you don’t want to go to prison, you’re going to testify,” Wade responded harshly.

I blinked. “What?”

“What Wade is failing to put delicately is that you need to testify if we’re going to get you any kind of immunity for what you’ve done,” Darren rephrased.

“Just what part of ‘we were kidnapped and held hostage and threatened with death and the death of our loved ones’ did you fail to understand?!” I shouted.

Jacey was pale, but she took my hand between hers and rubbed the back of my hand soothingly with her thumb. “We’ll testify, Darren.”

“But, Jacey, Hank and Mom and Timothy—” I argued.

“Are not going to be helped by us staying quiet. We have to testify, or this is never going to end, Caleb,” she said softly.

I frowned, but she did have a point. “What about our parents and Timothy?” I asked.

“What is he going to do to them that he wouldn’t do anyway?” Her voice was thick with defeat.

“So we give up? Leave them for dead?” I shot back.

Jacey burst into tears, and I instantly regretted my words. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean it.”

“Charming.” Wade finished putting his things away. “Well, at least we don’t need to worry about any accidental pregnancies until the gyno team gets here. He’ll be lucky if she doesn’t cut his dick off for that one.”

“Caleb, Jacey, I know you’re both under a lot of stress,” Darren sighed. “But I need you to not break team. You’ve been doing so well so far.”

Jacey dropped my hand and ran from the room.

“Caleb, has anyone told you recently that you’re an idiot?” Darren asked, shaking his head.

“I’ll fix it.” I got up and went after Jacey.

She’d gone out the back door, down to the dock, and was standing over the lake. I made my way down to stand beside her. “I wasn’t saying you were giving up,” I tried to explain. “I was saying they were. What can we do to help them, anyway? Darren says he’s going to try his best, but we’ve seen where his best got us before. I don’t want that to happen to our family.”

Jacey was silent. She wouldn’t look at me.

“Baby, I mean it; I wasn’t yelling at you,” I said brokenly. “Please don’t ice me out.”

She looked up, and her eyes were red with tears. And I’d put them there.

I reached for her, but she took a step back. My heart broke. “Jacey?”

“You’re sleeping on the sofa until the gynecologist comes,” she informed me hollowly. “After that, we can talk. But don’t you touch me, Caleb Killeen. Don’t you touch me right now.”

She headed back up to the house.

I crumpled down and sat at the edge of the dock, feeling rejected and useless. And it was my own damn fault.

Darren came down about half an hour later as I was watching the sunset. “Couples fight sometimes, son. It happens.”

Subtly, I rubbed my eyes then looked up at Darren. “Yeah?”

“Usually because a guy was a dumbass. But, there you have it. It’ll blow over or you’ll talk it out. You’re going to be okay,” Darren assured me.

“What if she doesn’t want to work it out?” I whispered.

“That girl looks at you like the sun shines out of your ass. Trust me. You’ll work it out,” Darren said.

“Is she okay? Where did she go?” I asked.

Darren pointed to one side of the house. “She’s in the bedroom, crying her eyes out. You’ve got to let her have that.”

“I don’t want her crying her eyes out just because I was a dumbass,” I said.

“It’s not your choice. The sofa pulls out into a bed. I made it up for you.” Darren looked out at the water.

“She doesn’t want to talk about things until the gyno’s been here. When will that be?” I asked.

He blew out a long breath. “About a week.”

“A week?! But she could hate me by then!” I gasped. “No, come on. There has to be, like, some emergency gyno or something. Somebody. Anybody.”

“Caleb, you’re just going to have to grin and bear it for now,” he said. “This is the best I can do.”

I punched a dock post, which wasn’t the greatest idea. My knuckles split, and my hand throbbed. “I’m so damned tired of hearing how people are doing their best.”

“It’s the truth. You’d rather I lie to you?” Darren asked.

“No.” I hung my head, feeling helpless.

He clapped me on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you settled. I think making some food might go a long way.”

“You think she’ll eat with me?” I replied hopefully.

“No, but I think if you set a tray outside her door, she’ll appreciate it,” Darren said.

I got up and walked back to the house with Darren. He gave me a tour of where everything in the kitchen was then left me there to cook.

Remembering he was staying with us, I made three grilled cheese sandwiches.