“Raine, what is going on here?” Margot, her manager, rushed over with a towel and began frantically wiping up the spill. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized profusely. Glancing behind her and realizing that Raine had yet to move, she shouted at her. “Don’t just stand there, get some damn towels!”
***
Fired. What the hell was she going to do now? Raine sunk deeper into the cooling bathwater, her mind in a fog. It took nearly an hour to calm Marylyn down enough to get her to stop screaming, and when she did, she’d set her vindictive eyes on Raine and demanded her head on a platter.
Well, not on a platter so much as her to be fired on the spot.
Thankfully, Margot had enough professional grace to deny Marylyn’s request, but as soon as she’d left, spitting mad and issuing threats of both physical violence and legal recompense, Raine was ushered into the back office and issued her last paycheck.
Too humiliated to call Jarret and ask him to pick her up, Raine walked the two and a half miles back to his house and climbed straight into a tub of hot bathwater to try and get some feeling back into her numb limbs. At least she still had a roof over her head for the time being.
How in the world was she going to keep her apartment now that she didn’t have any income to pay rent? Jarret’s generosity was the only thing that allowed her to both put away money and keep up with her bills to ensure she still had a place to return to once she left.
She could already predict Jarret’s answer: to stay with him. That was his answer to everything. But Raine couldn’t continue to freeload off him just because he had more money than her. Could she? No, she couldn’t take advantage of his giving nature. Even if he was living in a mansion and had more money than God.
To be fair, she didn’t really think he was richer than the Almighty, but the comparison between their drastically different lifestyles was glaring. This was the classic case of poor girl meets rich boy and rich boy saves poor girl from total ruin. Frankly, she was already a statistic, but she refused to compound the situation.
Slipping beneath the water, Raine held her eyes open against the uncomfortable shrinking sensation in her eyeballs as she peered at the ceiling through the ripples coating the surface. She’d kept a diary most of her life, faithfully writing down her daily thoughts, experiences, hopes, and dreams, as mundane as they were. Never once had she imagined this was how her life would turn out. If she had anymore tears to cry, now would be the perfect time to shed them, but she was all cried out. Now, Raine just felt numb.
She’d lost her job? Fine. She’d start searching for a new one tomorrow. She was six months pregnant? Okay. That was a hurdle she would have to leap when she came to it, and she would clear every one of them. She didn’t have a home or family to fall back on? Well, that was a tough pill to swallow, but she’d choke it down and move on.
Something Raine had learned in her short nineteen years of life on earth was that nothing was permanent. Everything in the world, from the weather to life itself, was in a constant state of flux. The trick was to ride out the waves, no matter how high or hard or far they traveled.
The shadow that passed through the halo of light scared the tar right out of her. Bolting up, Raine breeched the surface already screaming. Scrubbing water from her eyes, she hurried to put her glasses on. Her screams died off the moment she laid eyes on Jarret standing in the middle of the bathroom floor. He was still dressed in dirty coveralls, grease smudging his left cheek and a deadly look in his eyes.
“What are you doing in here? Get out! Getoutgetoutgetout!” Frantically, Raine covered her bits and pieces the best she could, hunching over her knees to keep the worst of it from view, but her round stomach made that nearly impossible to accomplish. Nearly.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why the hell I just broke every speed law in the county to see if you made it home okay. And why the hell did your friend Becky say you got fired?”
Becky? The hostess? “She’s not my friend,” Raine muttered.
“I don’t care if she’s your fucking friend or not,” Jarret snapped, causing Raine to flinch. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have come. Damn it, Raine, I would have fucking come.”
The strain in his voice prevented Raine from lifting her head. The sudden shame that came over her was a powerful force, and she couldn’t bear to see the way he must be looking at her. “Will you please leave me alone? I want to get out now.” Avoiding his questions? Damn straight, but in Raine’s book of ethics, engaging in heavy talks required a modicum of clothing.
“Get out then. Nobody’s stopping you.”
Unable to believe what she just heard, Raine’s head flew up. He was serious? The look he pinned her with said he was, and Raine glared back at him. Did he intend to humiliate her? Was he getting a kick out of seeing her squirm? Well, she had news for him. She wasn’t going to allow him to intimidate her. He’d already seen everything there was to see, she reasoned with herself, and by the look he’d had on his face that evening, he liked it.
Working up enough nerve to do what she did next, Raine placed her hands on the sides of the tub and stood. Water dripped off her naked body as she turned and held out her hand. “Hand me a towel.”
Jarret’s eyes were fastened to her breasts, lips slightly parted as if he hadn’t really believed she would do it. But she had, and now she was reveling in his reaction.
“The towel, Jarret?” she repeated, snapping him from his daze—a daze that bolstered her confidence just enough for her to lift her chin a little higher.
“Oh. Yeah, sure. Here you go.” Handing her the fluffy white towel, Jarret watched her every move closely as Raine wrapped it around her body and walked from the room.
“Tell me why you didn’t call. Did they deny you a phone call? The shop is closer to the diner than the house. Why didn’t you come there? It’s too damn cold out to walk.”
Firing off one question after another, Jarret followed behind her, leaving Raine no room for privacy. She may have shown him her body, but that didn’t mean she intended to become a nudist. With no other choice, Raine entered the closet and riffled through one of the garbage bags for a fresh set of clothes.
“I didn’t feel like talking to anyone then,” she called from inside the closet as she dropped her towel.
“But you felt like walking two miles?” His question, holding a curious note, came from a distance, though growing closer by the second. “You’re living out of garbage bags?” She was stepping into a pair of old lounge pants when Jarret appeared in the doorway, the look on his face one of utter disbelief.
“Jesus, Jarret! Privacy!” Losing her balance, Raine grabbed for the wall with one hand, while trying to tug her pants up with the other. She wasn’t very successful, but thankfully, Jarret was there to keep her from making a bigger ass out of herself.
Oh wait. Nope, he hadn’t.
Setting her back on her feet, Jarret’s eyes blazed as they fell to her bare breasts.
“Look away,” Raine growled, shoving his shoulder and covering herself with her arm.
Rolling his eyes, Jarret turned around. Slowly. “I don’t know what you’re getting your panties in a twist for, Forester. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Men,” Raine huffed. Collecting the first shirt she saw, she ripped it over her head. “You see a boob and you drool all over yourself.”
Jarret just shrugged, as if this were a simple truth. “So are you going to tell me why you’re living out of a garbage bag? Do you have something against hangers?” He moved out of the way as Raine pushed past him.
Standing in front of the vanity that perfectly matched the rest of the bedroom outfit, Raine selected a pair of drop earrings with sea green beads at the ends, and tilted her head to put them on. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I’ve always had an aversion to silk lined hangers,” she said, giving him a sarcastic roll of her eyes through the mirror.
“Then I’ll order wooden. Unless you prefer wire?” He cocked a
dark, mocking brow.
Raine’s shoulders dropped. “Silk is fine, Jarret. More than fine.”
“Then why aren’t you using them?”
“Because I don’t intend to.” Busying herself with her hair, Raine brushed through the long strands for far longer than was necessary, desperate to avoid a confrontation.
Frowning, Jarret walked up behind her, so close that she could feel the heat from his chest against her back. He stared at her reflection, puzzling her out. “You still intend to leave, don’t you?” he asked, almost as if he had seen straight into her thoughts and plucked them out.
“I never said I was going to stay.”
“No, you didn’t.” One step closer and Jarret’s hard chest pressed against her back. Raine felt every nerve ending in her body sizzle to life as Jarret lowered his head to her ear, his eyes never leaving hers. In a deep, gravel voice he said softly, “But now you don’t have a choice.”
Raine stiffened instantly. “What did you say?”
Smirking, Jarret backed off, and headed for the door. “Get used to it, Peach. This is your home now. And in this home, we have rules. Meet me downstairs in five.”
Raine glared at the empty doorway. How dare he assume that she would just bow to his will! Just because she didn’t have a job didn’t mean she was going to give up. And what the hell had he meant by ‘rules’ anyway? And who could forget that he’d given her an order? Meet him downstairs in five minutes? Make it ten.
Gathering her hair into a loose bun, Raine strolled into the bathroom and took her time brushing her teeth and apply a touch of makeup before ever so slowly making her way to the first floor.
FIFTEEN
Apparently, ‘rules’ meant game night. Tonight would be the first of many according to Jarret, and because she’d been late meeting him, he’d taken the liberty of choosing which one they’d play: Monopoly. As part of her punishment, he’d chosen her piece, too—the boot.
But that wasn’t what had Raine’s face burning.
Jarret had seen her boobs. Twice. Hell, he’d seen everything. That was all Raine could think about as they sat on the floor of the sunroom. And from the way he kept glancing up at her from beneath that thick fringe of dark lashes, those gem-colored eyes skating over her form each time, told her he wasn’t thinking about football.
The carnal way Jarret watched her made Raine’s insides squirm in the most delicious way. She could hardly sit still.
“Straight to jail,” Jarret pouted as he trotted his little metal dog to the far corner of the board. “Do not pass go, do not collect two-hundred.”
“You can buy my Get Out of Jail Free card,” Raine offered, holding it up to her face, hiding the devious smirk playing about her lips, “for a price.”
“What’s the going rate on freedom these days?”
“Oh, I’d say…one-thousand should do it.”
Glancing down at the slim stack of paper money in front of him, Jarret’s eyes narrowed. “How does forty-three dollars sound?”
“Oh, Mr. Moss. It sounds like you over-invested.” Raine looked at the impressive amount of real estate cluttering the board pointedly. “I suggest you use this time wisely and consider your actions.” Rolling the dice, Raine happily skipped around the board, cackling gleefully as Jarret used up his next two turns to escape confinement.
“You’re enjoying this far too much,” Jarret remarked as he rolled to his feet. “I’m going to get a beer. You want me to bring you back anything?”
She requested a bottle of water, and then leaned back on her elbows to stretch her aching back. Letting her head fall back on her shoulders, Raine gazed up at the glittering night sky through the three walls of surrounding windows. She hadn’t looked at the stars since she was a kid. The last time she had, she must have been around twelve or thirteen. She remembered it because it was the first night she’d slept away from home.
Okay, it was in the back yard. But in her defense, being given permission to break away from the heavy press of a parental thumb, even if only for something as simple as pitching a tent in the backyard, was akin to hiking in the wilderness without a guide. It was dark and daring and felt just dangerous enough to give her a thrill. And that was what life was all about, right? The thrill?
There were far too few of those once adulthood entered the picture.
A shock of cold stung the side of Raine’s neck, and she yelped. “Hey!”
Chuckling, Jarret handed her the water she requested. Pushing aside the game board, he filled the space beside her and leaned back, adopting the same pose as he drank his beer and looked up at the stars. “There’s something about wintertime that makes everything seem more still. I used to stare at the stars all the time when I went camping with the boys.”
“The boys?”
“Yeah, my friends.” Jarret shrugged, tipping his bottle back and drinking deep.
“What friends?” Raine had been living with him for nearly a month, and she had yet to meet these so-called friends. Maybe they were imaginary. Or maybe Jarret was too ashamed to introduce her to them, concerned more with keeping up the perfect Moss image.
But that didn’t sound like the Jarret she’d come to know.
“You say that like it’s impossible for me to have friends,” Jarret remarked tersely. “Yes, friends. We used to hang out all the time. We spent half our teen years camped out in the middle of the woods. Roughing it, that’s what we called it, but we never even learned how to build a proper fire.” He shook his head, reliving those moments with a fond smile.
“What happened to those friends?”
A dark look passed over him, and Jarret finished off his drink. Lying back, he tucked his arms beneath his head, his shirt inching up to allow a peek of his taut abdomen. Raine struggled to keep her focus, the draw to look, touch, feel almost too powerful to ignore. Somehow, she managed to keep her fingers to herself.
“What happens with everything? We grew apart.”
We grew apart. He said it so casually, as if talking about a change in the weather, but Raine knew better. Connection like he described, as concise as it was, wouldn’t just grow apart. Would it? Having had no close friends of her own, she couldn’t say for sure, but it didn’t settle well.
“Did they go off to school or something? Or did you have a fight?” she prodded, allowing the curiosity to win out.
“Something like that,” Jarret said evasively. Raine stared at him until Jarret felt her eyes on him and met her gaze. She lifted her eyebrows. Care to elaborate? He huffed, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. “Let’s just say that being a member of one of the most influential families in town has a way of destroying relationships. My father can be a little overwhelming,” he explained, but it was no explanation at all.
Raine had met his father, and she found Mr. Moss intimidating as much as he was infuriating. He was definitely an imposing figure, but what could he have possibly done to come between such a close-knit group of friends? If they could break ties so easily, it must have either been something pretty bad, or they were never very good friends to begin with.
The tight set of Jarret’s jaw convinced Raine to save any lingering questions for another time. As far as nights went, it was a peaceful one, and she wanted to enjoy it. In the city, that kind of thing was hard to find. The endless noise of life drowned out those quiet moments, creating a chaotic backdrop to everything, making something as simple as sitting on a deck in the middle of rural countryside almost deafening in its silence.
“How did you get this place?” Raine wondered aloud. The house, hell the land, had to have cost a fortune. How did a young twenty-something mechanic afford something this nice?
“My parents bought it for me. Kind of a graduation present,” he said unapologetically.
Holy shit. She’d heard of kids getting cars, or a nice check handed to them, but a house? Even for people like the Mosses, it seemed extravagant. “That’s a hell of a present.”
Jarret
just nodded, his gaze fixed on the sky. Shifting, Raine eased down beside him, lying out fully and feeling the hard floor dig into her back and hips. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Jarret asked, breaking the easy silence.
Raine snorted, finding the question funny. “Working in a diner, or maybe fast food, making minimum wage, living in a one bedroom apartment, and if I’m lucky, having just enough money to feed my kid.” As futures went, hers was bleak, and it wasn’t something she wanted to look at too closely.
Jarret rolled his head sideways. She could feel his penetrating gaze burning into the side of her face, but Raine continued to watch the stars instead. “Do you really think that?”
“I don’t think it,” Raine replied, her voice strong despite the urge to weep with pity for herself, “I know it.” Someone in her position had little recourse. Once the baby arrived, she’d have to make even more sacrifices than she already had. Money and time would be tight, and she’d have to choose work or school. For obvious reasons, work would win out, and without a degree, she’d end up working crap jobs that forced her to rely on government subsidies to make ends meet. So to say she was looking at hard times ahead was a massive understatement.
“Sometimes,” she whispered, her voice fading in and out with emotion, “I wonder if I shouldn’t have taken your dad up on his offer.” The admission forced a lump of guilt to form in her throat, and Raine swallowed hard, attempting to dislodge it.
“You’d give the baby to strangers?” Jarret asked, his voice filled with horrified disbelief. Raine couldn’t answer. It wasn’t that she wanted to, or even that she was really considering it an option, but what if she did? What if she allowed another couple to give her child everything she couldn’t? Would that be so bad?
Turning on his side, Jarret’s blue eyes blazed. Placing his hand over her stomach, he said, “You might think that’s a solution now, but I promise, you’d regret it. Every time you saw another woman with her kid, you’d wonder where yours was, what he looked like, how he was being treated. And every time you looked at yourself in the mirror, you’d hate yourself just a little more. Trust me, money isn’t everything, Raine. It can’t buy happiness. That’s something you have to make happen all on your own.”
Raine Page 11
