It Pours (Chambers of the Heart Book 2)

by C D Cain

  Maybe this was a way out. Maybe his choices gave me an out to live the future I wanted? Yet should I really cower behind the simplicity of location as a reason to cancel our nuptials? Would I betray the small oak’s strength if I were to succumb to using another reason behind my choices other than being strong in the truth of who I was?

  The sound of the car’s tires was louder than I remembered as Grant drove along the drive lined by pecan trees. The trees had once provided a staple and source of income for the large plantation home but now they served only as a decoration.

  Crunch. Crack. Crunch. Crack.

  Quietly, I stretched my neck to look out the window at the ground. Hundreds of pecan shells, some freed from the black outer covering while others were naked of their shells, lay across the road and ground. The house came into view.

  “What are you guys like the fucking Kennedys of Mayberry or something?” Sam’s comment had once brought a laugh. Today, it left me with a feeling fitting of the gray sky.

  Charlie Grace walked out of the large French doors of the house. Her movements were slow as she stepped down the brick steps. She looked radiantly put together. She looked elegant. She looked…older.

  “I had nearly put my mind to y’all missing dinner this evening.” Her dramatic flair was as much a memory as Sam’s voice. She opened the passenger door as Grant rolled to a stop. “Well, it’s about time you two got here. Oh, dear Gawd, what did you do to your hair?” She flipped the short strands of hair that fell below my ear. “At least we have time to let it grow out before the wedding.” She frowned. “But those blonde highlights will take forever to grow out.”

  And there she is, Charlie Grace.

  “Hi, Mother. So nice to see you too.” I stood from the car and gave her our standard brief hug.

  She ran her finger across my bangs and cringed as if they stung her hand. “Really, Rayne. What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I was thinking ‘Hey, I’d like to get a new hairstyle.’ You know, something crazy like that. Kids these days.”

  “Such sass.” She looked over my shoulder. “Well, at least you shaved that crap off so I can see your handsome face again.”

  I looked over the hood to see Grant’s cleanly shaven face. Wait? He shaved his beard? The look on his face was as quizzical and questioning as the thoughts in my head.

  “You two have seen each other, yes?” Charlie Grace looked back and forth between us. “I mean, you did just spend hours with each other in the car or am I wrong about that? Good Lord, you two look like you’re seeing each other for the first time.”

  “I don’t know about that but, Charlie Grace, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Grant stepped around the hood of the car to lift her up in his arms.

  She laughed. She literally laughed before patting his face with her hands. They looked smaller. I wasn’t sure if it was the actual size of them or maybe it was a new shirt. She usually didn’t wear her shirts this loose with the sleeves opening out over her wrists. Or is she smaller?

  “Hey, look at you two!” Jacques took the brick steps more rapidly than Charlie Grace had. He took me fully in his arms and hugged me with a tight grip that held me close to him. “Rayne, you look beautiful. Something’s changed.” He leaned back away from me to look at me. “What is it? Hmmmm.”

  “Well.” I ran my hand through my cropped hair. “I got a new haircut.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, maybe that’s it. But damn if you don’t look absolutely radiant. Whatever it is, I love it.”

  I wrapped my arm around his waist as he pulled away from the hug. He kept his arm around my shoulder and squeezed it slightly as he spoke.

  “Grant, thanks for bringing our girl home to us.” He looked down into my eyes. “We’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too.”

  He dropped his hand from my shoulder. “Come on, son. Let’s get you unloaded.”

  I looked past Jacques as I waited for the others to come out of the house. “Where’s Glenn? Are they still in the woods?”

  Jacques looked over his shoulder toward Charlie Grace who hung her head as she retreated back into the house. The door closed softly behind her.

  “Not this time, honey. They didn’t come up this year.” He patted me softly on my shoulder. His and Charlie Grace’s actions spoke volumes beyond words. This was not a topic to be further discussed.

  Grant and I followed Jacques into the house. If not for the smell of basil and peppers warming my nose, I would have been uncomfortable with the chill in the foyer of the house. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket. Yet it wasn’t a temperature that chilled my body. It was the house. The sense of the house. Nothing was as I remembered of Thanksgivings past. I peered into the den where Charlie Grace sat quietly staring at a fireplace filled with burning candles. The rich fall colors were absent from the drapery. The purples and golds found during the beginning of football season still remained the focus of the room’s decorations.

  “Are you making pasta tonight?” I sat down on the couch beside her.

  “No. Pizza.”

  “Pizza?”

  “Yes, this one here got a wild hair to learn to make pizza. A few thousand dollars later, we have a renovated kitchen with a brick pizza oven,” Jacques said as he and Grant walked into the room. “If she keeps trying new things, I won’t be a bit surprised if she says she’s going parachuting next.”

  “Oh, please. I hardly think a brick oven is the same as jumping out a perfectly good airplane. I find the comparison to be utterly ridiculous.”

  “You’re right. I would’ve spent a helluva lot less money on the parachute jump.” He and Grant chuckled.

  I could tell Charlie Grace was anything but amused. She stood from the couch and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “You’re in the doghouse tonight, old buddy,” Grant said as he sat in the loveseat closest to where I was.

  “It’s okay. I’ve been out there so much lately it’s like a second home to me.”

  “Where are all of the decorations, Jacques?” I placed a sofa pillow over my arms.

  Jacques looked around the room. “Yeah. She said she didn’t feel much like putting them out this year.”

  “Is she not feeling well? She looks like she’s lost weight.”

  “She’s not eating the best.” Jacques winked at me. “She’s gonna be okay.”

  Charlie Grace cleared her throat. “She’s absolutely fine and happens to be back in the same room. She also doesn’t appreciate being talked about behind her back.” She sipped on the fresh martini in her hand as she sat back on the couch.

  “What? No Irish Coffees?” The chill hovering over the room grew.

  “I’ll make you one if you want.” Charlie Grace pulled a shawl from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  I shook my head. “No, that’s okay.”

  Everything was off. I recognized the look in Charlie Grace’s eyes as she stared into the burning candles. I saw the familiarity in the gray version of my own. The eyes which stared back at me when I thought of Memaw. When I felt the pain of her loss. Did I really see the same in hers? The signs of lines at her eyes drew her lids down into a frown. I caught the faint lines of clumped makeup around the sides of her mouth. When did she age so?

  “Come on, Grant. Let’s go ice down some beer to go with this delicious smelling pizza. Who needs Irish Coffee with pizza?” Jacques said while he walked toward the door.

  After the men left the room, Charlie Grace and I watched the flickering candles in silence.

  “I don’t know, Jazlyn. It’s just so weird here.” I sat on the porch along the back of the house as I hardly wanted to be inside a moment longer.

  “What? Being back home after so long or is there more to it?”

  “More. Way more. The whole place feels off. Ch
arlie Grace. The house. The traditions. They’re all off.” I rocked the chair and leaned my head against the back of it. The chair squeaked in the too-long silence.

  “Is this the first Thanksgiving?” Jazlyn’s voice held a tenderness.

  “Yes.”

  “And it was this time of year?”

  “Yes.”

  I heard Jazlyn’s deep intake of air. “Oh, my friend. This time will be tough on everyone.”

  “Not Charlie Grace. That woman is made of stone.”

  “But she lost her mother.”

  “You didn’t see her at the funeral.” My voice cracked.

  “I’m here for whatever you need. If you want to cry, I’m here. If you would rather not right now, then we can make that happen too.”

  “I could use for a change of subject.”

  “Well, alright then. Let’s do this.” I could hear her smile within her words. The smile that was so wide and open I swear I could see her molars. It brightened her whole face when she smiled. It brightened mine. She was truly a best friend. “They have a new dish at the Thai place and it’s freaking unbelievable.”

  I laughed. “I thought I heard you chewing when I first called.”

  “Sorry, dude. I was trying to hide it.” She was not, however, trying to hide it now as I could tell she was talking around a mouth full. “It’s just so freaking good and I’m a starving’ Marvin over here. The club is crazy tonight. Damn lesbians are trying to dance their asses off before the big turkey day.”

  “Hey, you gotta do something to make room for that extra piece of sweet potato pie.”

  “Yuck. You can keep your little potatoes of the sweet. I’ll take this chicken with coconut and tarragon.”

  I heard her take a sip of liquid. “What are you drinking?”

  She laughed. “Damn, you’re on your investigative skills tonight.”

  “That I am.”

  “We thought a new meal deserved a new wine choice.”

  “We? Violent home tonight.”

  “Nah. She’s on call. This is her holiday. Mo’s here.”

  Mo’s there? The thumping of my heartbeat drowned out the creak of the rocking chair.

  “She came in to spend Turkey Day with me. We are grabbing a bite in between her sets.”

  My mouth was too dry to speak. My throat was tight with visions of Mo’s eyes as she watched my lips. The eyes that watched me as her body lay on top of me. Her face obscured by the hair which fell as she rested above me. The smile that crept across her face as she tucked the loose strands behind her ear.

  “Hey? Did I lose you?”

  I swallowed.

  “Damn cell phones.”

  “No, I’m here. Sorry. So, Mo’s there?” Geez, was that as pathetic as I heard in my own head?

  “Yeah, she’s here. Just walking in from her set.” Jazlyn’s voice became muffled and I wondered if she had moved the phone away from her mouth. It didn’t keep me from hearing her words. “Damn, girl. Do I need to put a fan up there with you? You’re drenched.”

  When I heard Mo’s laughter and voice, my stomach flipped like an ocean wave had crossed my belly.

  “Talking to Rayne. Want me to tell her anything for you?”

  “Ah,” I heard Mo say. “Sure. Tell her I said hi.”

  “Mo says hi.”

  The wave suddenly turned to nausea. “I heard. Thanks. Tell her I said hi back.” I started the chair rocking again to take my mind off of the feeling in my stomach. “I’ll let you two go enjoy your new fab dinner.” I hoped my voice sounded chipper than I felt. I hoped it sounded anything other than the disappointment I felt knowing Mo was back in town and hadn’t contacted me.

  “Are you sure? We can keep talking if you want? Mo can entertain herself. You know that.”

  “Ha. Yeah. She’s a woman of many talents.” I forced a laugh. I was sure Jazlyn would hear it, but maybe she would think it for reasons besides the pain of knowing the truth of our one-night stand. “But, yeah. I’m good. Getting ready for bed actually. Y’all have fun tonight.”

  The sound of a trickling rain beat lightly across the roof of the balcony outside my bedroom. The pattering of its drops was comforting and just loud enough to attempt to deafen my thoughts. I massaged my forehead to try to rub away the aching throb between my eyebrows.

  What was it about life these days? Could nothing be simple anymore? I had gone from a life of worrying of nothing more than when I would go fishing with Memaw again to why a woman I had shared the most intimate parts of my body with had never called me afterward. In between those thoughts were the facts: I was engaged to a man I knew I could never marry; I had a mother who seemed to be slipping into a depression—which was unlike anything I had seen of her before; I had fallen in love and loss with a woman I believed was truly the love of my life; and I was filled with the eternal blackness left the night Memaw passed in my arms. How? How did it all go so wrong in such a short amount of time?

  I looked up when my phone vibrated on the small wooden nightstand. It startled me. I managed to catch it before it fell off the table.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  “Hey, you.”

  Mo.

  “Hi.”

  “Did I wake you?” Mo’s voice was hoarse. It got that way after a night’s show.

  “No. I’m in bed but not sleeping.”

  “Oh.”

  I became acutely aware of the high-pitched drip of water as it fell through the guttering. I counted the drops as they hit against the metal.

  Mo took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I wish I were there with you.”

  “Where?”

  “In your bed. Lying next to you.”

  I bit into my bottom lip.

  “Rayne?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I were there with you now. Or you here with me. Or anywhere for the matter. Anywhere that found your body against mine again.”

  “You didn’t call.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “I’m not the one that sleeps with random women.”

  “Is that what you think you are to me? Is that what you think it was?”

  “You tell me.” I didn’t want to argue. I didn’t. All I wanted to do was fall into her voice. All I wanted to do was envision her as she had described with her body lying behind me and her arms wrapped around me while we listened to the rain. Yet I feared the pain of letting my thoughts go there. She hadn’t called. In the days since I kissed her goodbye at Jazlyn’s loft, I had thought of her. I wondered if she had moved on to another woman. A distant roll of thunder shook me from that train of thought.

  “Is that thunder?”

  “Yes. It’s still far off but yeah.”

  “I love thunderstorms.”

  “I remember.”

  “Rayne?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you want to talk about who didn’t call who, we can do that. Or, if given my choice we can accept that either one of us could’ve called the other but for whatever reason we didn’t and let it go right there.” She let out another deep sigh. “I want to be there with you,” she whispered. A whisper that set my body on fire. “Lying behind you. Holding you in my arms. Listening to the storm.”

  Just like that, with the sound of her whisper in my ear, I was there again. Listening to the rain on the rooftop of Jazlyn’s loft. I felt the warmth of her body. The touch of her fingertips. The yearning ache in the pit of my stomach. “I don’t want.”

  “Hmmmmm. Okay then.”

  “No. I mean, I don’t want to discuss who didn’t call who.” I followed her whisper and hoped it had the same effect on her as hers did me. “I want you here or me there. I want that so badly.”

  “That’s better.” Her words were drawn out.

  The thunde
r was closer this time and vibrated the glass of the balcony door.

  “Sounds like it’s getting close?”

  “Yeah, I think it is.”

  “Wish you could see the moon tonight. I’m up on the rooftop and it’s a gorgeous night here.”

  “I remember that rooftop.”

  “As do I.” I heard rustling. “I remember how your body felt under these sheets.”

  “Oooh. You’re on the bed.” Another butterfly.

  “I am.”

  My throat closed again to the words I wanted to say.

  “I’ve thought of you. Hell, thought about nothing but you. You’ve sort of captivated me, Rayne Storm. Fitting we are talking while one is happening.”

  She thought of me? I tucked the pillows in behind my back to sit up against the headboard.

  “I was waiting for you to call. A part of me was afraid you may have been freaked out after our weekend. It’s not like you’re completely available. You’re engaged and your heart belongs to someone else. I also didn’t know if you were comfortable with the time we shared. Was it an experience to get out of your system or were you thinking it may in fact be a part of you? Every time I picked up my phone to call you, I had those thoughts run through my head. So, I waited.”

  “And I never called.”

  “You didn’t but it’s okay. I only said it to tell you where I am with all of this.”

  “It’s more than a part.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. It’s more than a part of me. It is me.”

  She paused for several seconds. “Because you feel that way or because of something I said and you think it’s the way you should respond.”

  “Because I feel it. Because I know it.” I straightened the covers across my lap. “Because I accept it now. I’m a lesbian. Have always been.”

  “You know you don’t have to tell me that. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

  “I know, but it’s the truth.”

  I could hear her breaths over the storm outside. They were steady and I was beginning to wonder if she had fallen asleep.

  “I’m really into you,” she said. “More than I thought I would be. Can’t stop thinking about you actually.”