Page 5 of Guarded By the SEAL
She threw the phone on the passenger seat and started the car, thinking of the big project she’d just been put in charge of at her new job. She’d have to call her boss and explain.
She wanted to scream.
It was four hundred miles to Marilyn’s home in Mississippi, and God only knew what Teslyn would find when she got there.
CHAPTER3
Nothing good happens in a storm like this.
Light severed the darkness with a glaring flash, the boom of thunder rattling Teslyn’s car and making her hands tighten reflexively on the wheel. Water poured down the windshield, the wipers barely able to keep up, wind forcing the vehicle toward the shoulder with every gust.
She should pull over, stop driving, but her mother’s phone call after so many years of silence echoed in her memory.
I have a little sister.
Guilt pulled at Teslyn like the mud of a swamp sucking at her feet. Was Ivy’s childhood just like hers? No one should have to live through that. If Teslyn had known the girl existed she would have come back. Tried to shield her, protect her somehow. Maybe she could do that for her now, even try to become Ivy’s guardian.
She doesn’t even know you. What makes you think she’d want to leave her mother and live with you?
She knew in her heart of hearts that if someone had offered her a way out when she was five years old, she never would have taken it. Back then, she’d loved Marilyn, no matter her faults. It was only when she grew up that she was able to see her mother for who she was—and see how close she herself had come to following in Marilyn’s footsteps.
Teslyn frowned, unable to believe she was heading home. She’d put as many miles between herself and that piece of shit trailer as she could muster, using the distance like a balm upon her soul, a magical cream that could heal wounds she once thought would weep for all eternity. She’d made a life for herself. A good one. But a gossamer string would always connect her to Marilyn Gleason, no matter how far away Teslyn got.
Coming back to Osprey, Mississippi was like slicing open a scar—but the fear in her mother’s voice had been her undoing.“He owns the police, babydoll.”
Another flash of lightning, the roll of thunder nearly instantaneous. Tornadoes were common this time of year, and her eyes went to the radio. If she turned it on, would it warn her to seek shelter? There was nowhere to go, no safety in sight, and it occurred to her she had always felt this way here, tornado warning or not.
Teslyn shook her head and took a deep breath, forcing her fingers to relax their viselike grip on the wheel. “It’s just a place,” she whispered. “Just a town. Just a rundown, nasty trailer.” But the words failed to calm the erratic gallop of her heart.
She would do what she came here to do and get back to her life inside of a week. Help Marilyn and Ivy get set up in a new town, find them someplace to live, stock the refrigerator with fresh food. She could do that. She could handle herself. She would handle everything. She would get to meet her sister, let her know she had somewhere to go when she was finally old enough to extricate herself from the mess that was Marilyn Gleason’s life.
She passed an abandoned gas station and slowed down, turning onto the dirt road that wound its way toward her home. The road looked like a creek bed, water rushing down its rutted surface and pooling along one side. She passed a pickup truck and wondered who besides her would be crazy enough to be out driving in this mess.
Just a few hundred yards now. Her car bounced along the pocked road, her nose twitching at the scent of something burning.That had better not be my car.The last thing she needed was a car repair bill, especially after calling-in to work for the week claiming a family emergency. It felt like a lie, for in her heart she no longer had a family.
She followed the bend in the road, her surroundings getting eerily brighter as she made the turn. “What the hell?” she whispered to herself.
She slammed on the brakes as the trailer came into view, fully engulfed by a raging fire. She jumped out of the car and ran toward the burning trailer. “Momma!” Her cry was hoarse and full of emotion.
Intense heat had her backing away, shielding her eyes with her forearm. Flames shot from every window, intense and threatening. She screamed as loud as she could, “Mom! Ivy!” Emotion and smoke choked her airway. Marilyn was in there. Marilyn, and the little sister she’d never met.
She ran back to the car and grabbed her cell phone, dialing 911. Rain wet the screen and she yelled in frustration, wiping it on the cloth seat and dialing in the car.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My mother’s trailer is on fire!” She rattled off the address. “Please, hurry.”
“I’m sending help. Is anyone inside?”
“I don’t know.” Teslyn looked around, her stomach falling when she saw the late-model sedan parked beside the rusting metal shed. Marilyn always parked there. She swallowed hard. The words rushed out on a sob. “I think so, yes.”
“And what’s your name, sweetie?”
“Teslyn McGregor. Gleason,” she corrected. “Teslyn Gleason.”
“Teslyn, I want you to stay put until the authorities get there, okay? It should only be a few minutes.”
“Okay.” She hung up her phone and stumbled toward Marilyn’s car, running her hands over the roof, needing to touch it. It was warm like a toaster despite the rain, and she thought of the heat that must be inside that trailer.
