The Promise of Rayne

by Nicole Deese

  She gave a long sigh and then conceded with a nod.

  “So, Rayne Shelby, what’s your hidden talent?” He lifted a finger. “And please, if at all possible, include a demonstration.”

  She tilted her head. “Is that another add-on rule? You just keep tacking them on—”

  “You’re stalling.”

  “Fine.” She huffed. “I can sing all the names of the fifty states in less than twenty-five seconds.”

  “And to think, I didn’t even have to pay for this kind of entertainment.”

  She cleared her throat while he took out his phone, found the stopwatch, and pointed at her to start.

  She didn’t miss a single state. Alabama to Wyoming. And all were said—or, sung—in twenty-two seconds flat.

  She pointed to the bucket and then to him. “You’re up.”

  Making sure to match her dramatic windup, he flung the bag straight into the center bullseye. “Guess I get to ask you another one.”

  “Only if you agree to move your twine back another ten feet. You have an unfair advantage.”

  “I know it might be hard to believe, but I don’t spend my free time tossing beanbags into Apple Adam. But let the record show, I’m moving the line.” He kicked the rope toward the opposite wall.

  “Now”—he tapped his chin with his forefinger—“let’s say a friend hands you a highly recommended novel. Do you read the ending first?”

  She squished her lips to one side of her mouth.

  “There’s no right or wrong here.” But he knew by the way she scrunched her brow, she believed otherwise.

  “No.”

  “Why did you pause so long?”

  She smiled. “Sorry, your question’s up. My turn.”

  Opting for a different approach, Rayne went for the underhand toss. She missed again.

  She let her head fall forward as Levi reached into the bucket.

  He circled her, tossing a yellow square from hand to hand. “Must be something,” he said, “operating that lodge day after day, surrounded by hundreds of strangers every month, all the while working for that—your uncle. I couldn’t do it. The monotony and stuffy clientele would grate on my nerves. And all for the sake of what—good hospitality? Makes me wonder how you do it. Why you do it. Makes me wonder if there’s some hidden purpose I’m not seeing.”

  “Is there a question in this monologue of yours?” she asked.

  He stopped in front of her and softened his voice. “Why do you stay, Rayne? You could have your pick of any job in this town or in this state, for that matter . . . and yet you work there. Under him.”

  She swallowed and took a step back. “You’re breaking the rules.”

  “And you’re avoiding my question.”

  She also avoided his gaze. “You already answered it—hospitality. I enjoy it.”

  “Lie.” He spun around, pitched his bag into the center of the bull’s-eye, and turned back to her again. “Hospitality may be something you’re good at, but it’s not the reason you stay there. You didn’t show up at that bar tonight afraid your gift of hospitality was going to be replaced by someone else.” He puckered his lips. “You showed up there for the same reason you came here to ask for my help that day. Fear. You’re afraid of losing something.”

  “And you’re not afraid of prying into other people’s business.”

  She skirted around him to retrieve her next pile of ammo. Levi caught her hand, trying hard to ignore the fact that it was so much colder than his own. “Another sad attempt at deflection.”

  “Then obey the rules and ask me a real question.”

  “Fine. Why did you follow me that night at the Falls?”

  She blinked, clearly not expecting that, and dropped her gaze to her toes. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Why, Rayne?”

  “I guess, because you seemed . . .”

  He waited for the list of adjectives that would have described him then: pathetic, needy, neglected—

  “Like you could use a friend.”

  Something splintered inside him at her revelation, something he wasn’t quite prepared to examine. He chose a safer alternative. “You’re right, especially after I got caught in those godforsaken weeds.”

  Her lips twitched. “I tried to warn you about the devil’s club.”

  True. Those were the first words Rayne Shelby had ever spoken to him: Watch out for that patch of devil’s club! “Too bad that was only after I’d starting tromping through those woods like an idiot. A little prewarning would have been nice.” He winced at the memory of the hair-thin, noxious spines pushing into his flesh. “That demon bush is the most appropriately named plant on the planet. If not for your voodoo tricks, I would probably still have those needles poking out of my palm.” He’d never forget the way she’d plucked a leaf from the same foliage that had attacked him and gestured him back to the river’s edge. She’d created some kind of a puttylike salve to apply to his palm after she’d drawn out each nettle from his irritated skin.

  “It’s a useful tip to know.”

  “It was for me.” While she’d worked on his hand, he’d studied her face under the stars—the slope of her nose, the rose tint of her lips, the dimple in her chin, and the compassion in her eyes. The same kind of unexplained compassion he’d been shown by a farmer only a few weeks earlier. “Well, before my unfortunate mishap with Satan’s shrub, I’d wondered if you were ever going to say a word to me.”

  “I was shy.”

  “Not buying it.” His grin was wicked. “After you were finished playing doctor, you practically begged me to kiss you.”

  Her mouth smacked open. “That is so not true!”

  He barked out a laugh. “Oh yes, I remember it well. There you were, fluttering your eyelashes and speaking to me all soft and sultry in the quiet of the night.”

  “Oh? Like when I told you about all the other indigenous plants you should look out for?”

  No, like when she’d told him she’d felt like an outsider for most of her life, like she was constantly letting people down, like she would never quite measure up. And when, in turn, he’d shared his own fears—of the unknown, of starting over in a new town, of a future he couldn’t envision.

  “Exactly,” he lied.

  The amusement in her eyes dimmed. They both knew what had come next: the sheriff’s patrol car rolling up, Gia yelling for Rayne to come back to the campfire, Rayne’s troubled gaze as she told him she had to leave, Levi following after her, asking her to meet him again the next night, Rayne promising she would.

  “I don’t know what my uncle Tony said to you after I got in his car that night, but I can imagine. He’s protective.”

  Levi could still feel the man’s finger drilling into his chest with a threat to stay away from his niece, the same threat he’d given Travis to stay away from his daughter, Gia. “I’d never fault a man for protecting a seventeen-year-old girl.” But they both knew it was more than that. The sheriff’s bent against Levi and Travis had less to do with good parenting and more to do with Tony’s connection to Cal Shelby. “Although, it must have been some warm welcome back at the lodge that night, since I never saw you at the Falls again.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “It must be nice winning every round of this game so you can steer the conversation however you’d like while I’ve yet to ask a single question of you.”

  “Then ask me something.” He moved in closer, disregarding every ounce of his common sense. “What is it you want to know?”

  “Where did you come from—before you moved to the farm?”

  “That’s a tricky one to answer.” Nothing about his past was simple.

  “Try.”

  Something about the rich sincerity of her request made him want to.

  “Before I knocked on Ford’s door . . .” It would be so easy to spin a different tale the way he’d done for so many years, but the expectation he read in her eyes left no room for anything less than the truth. “I lived
in my car. For nearly a month. And before that, a group home for teens in Washington. And before that, five different foster families in Oregon.”

  He watched the heavy weight of his words register, watched as she tried to reconcile a lifetime of rumors against the story he’d just told her.

  “And before that?”

  He was certain nothing less than a quick pulse of bravery had pumped the question out of her mouth. And if there was one thing he’d reward with honesty, it was courage—especially the kind that acted before justification could set in.

  “Before that I learned all about the kind of man I never want to become. And I pray to God He never lets me forget those lessons.”

  “You have no family?” she asked.

  “Not the kind connected by blood, no.”

  She seemed to think on that for a minute, let his answer soak in before she hit him with, “Your eyes look different now—than they did the night we first met, I mean.”

  “How so?”

  “They’re not lonely anymore.”

  He said nothing, yet his thoughts were far from silent. If she kept biting her bottom lip and staring at him with those same caramel-colored eyes of nine years ago, he’d have no choice but to pull her in and kiss her the way he’d wanted to before—

  She released a heavy sigh. “I dropped out of political science my third year of college, much to my family’s displeasure. I switched my degree to public relations instead and interned with a social worker for one of my service projects. She worked specifically with teens in transition and . . . I learned a lot.”

  He cleared his throat, rerouting his thoughts. “I imagine you did.”

  “What I mean to say is, if I’d met you for the first time tonight, I never would have guessed all that about your past. There’s nothing easy about finding your way alone. And yet you did.” Again, something crumbled inside him at the validation he heard in her voice.

  She rubbed the upper arms of her pink cardigan and he noted the goose bumps on her forearms for the first time.

  “You’re cold.” Levi unrolled the long sleeves of his plaid overshirt and shrugged it off. He placed it around her shoulders. “Take this.”

  “Thank you.” She slipped her arms inside the too-long sleeves. The length of the blue-and-green plaid reached past midthigh, the width swallowing her small frame as she worked the buttons.

  “So.” She glanced over her shoulder at the giant apple. “Whose turn is it?”

  “Think we should probably put your tossing arm to rest for the night.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I figured you’d want to head back soon anyway.”

  “Not unless you’re kicking me out.”

  “Don’t tempt me.” He winked. “But unless you have something else in mind, I’ve pretty much exhausted my resources in the storage closet.”

  “I do.” She pointed to the loft above her head—to the rope, in specific. “Ever swing from there onto those bales?”

  He folded his arms at his chest. Why couldn’t this girl understand the limits of her attire? “Obviously you’ve never crawled on hay with bare legs before. It’s not like a pillow-top mattress.”

  She tilted her head. “I’m not looking for a mattress. I’m looking for fun.” She looked around the room and pointed at the closet. “There. That white sheet, the one covering up another unidentified harvest creature. I’ll tuck it around my legs, like loose pants.”

  “You seriously want to swing from that loft and jump ten feet onto a manger of hay, wrapped like a mummy?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “And I know for a fact you haven’t had a drop to drink,” he murmured.

  “Nope.” She beamed. “Now, go take that sheet off Cory the Corncob and let me have my fun.”

  He saluted her. “Fine, but for the record, it’s Connor. Connor the Corncob.”

  Only a few hours ago, Levi had had no doubt he could rid his mind of the memory of Rayne in his barn . . . but that was before she’d climbed into his truck wearing his shirt. And that particular image—the one with her hay-rumpled hair resting against his seat, the tail of his button-up draped over her crossed legs—had already seared itself into his subconscious.

  It would take nothing short of a lobotomy to cut the memory out.

  “I can’t remember the last time I did anything like that,” she said on a yawn.

  “Doubt there are many who have taken a fifteen-foot plunge into a pile of hay dressed like Casper the Friendly Ghost and lived to tell about it.”

  Her laugh was relaxed, sleepy, even. “I just meant . . . I haven’t really . . .”

  Though her voice faded out, Levi understood her meaning well enough. “Taken a break.” Coincidently, Ford had accused him of the same thing recently.

  “Yes.” She fingered the lock on her door. “It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a break from responsibility.”

  From Shelby expectations was likely what she wasn’t saying.

  “You’re twenty-six, Rayne. Not seventy.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Yet her acknowledgment lacked conviction.

  Rayne flipped the lighted visor down, slipped the elastic band from the end of her hair, and slowly untangled each woven plait of her braid. Heat sparked in the center of his chest and spread into his limbs. After a tight swallow, he focused again on the road, drumming a tuneless melody on the steering wheel.

  If he wasn’t careful, he’d drive his truck straight into a ditch.

  Right along with his mind.

  “How’s the hip, by the way? You have some work to do on your tuck and rolls.”

  “Oh, it’s fine.” She let out a loose laugh. “I had a lot of fun, bruise and all.”

  “So did I.”

  He spared a glance in her direction as he pulled off Ramsey Highway onto the main drag of downtown Shelby Falls. The straggles of hair that had framed her face only minutes ago had been retucked, smoothed back into a fresh braid. And something inside him rebelled against the sight.

  He wasn’t ready for Repackaged Rayne to appear just yet.

  When she snapped the visor shut and lowered her arm to her lap, Levi reached across the seat divide and captured her hand. To his utter amazement, she didn’t resist. Didn’t pull away.

  She simply stared at the union of her hand folded into his.

  “I’m not your enemy, Rayne. You realize that, don’t you?”

  The shift on her face was slight, but it was there. Enough for him to note she’d heard him—maybe even believed him.

  Obnoxious laughter, followed by the raised voices of a crowd gathering outside BlackTail Bar and Grill, caused her eyes to tick wide.

  She slid her hand out of his grasp and shielded her face in the shadows.

  “Keep driving.” A quiet yet firm command.

  “Your car’s parked in that lot.”

  “Keep driving. Please. You can drop me at the gallery on Sixth.”

  Irritation pitched his voice. “And how will you get to your car?”

  “My cousin will take me.”

  “Rayne—”

  She shook her head. “We said one night, Levi. One night. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

  He clamped his mouth shut, his jaw straining under the pressure. Crazy how it only took seconds for her to complete the transformation back into a Shelby. Back into a woman who’d allow her family to dictate her life.

  “Right here’s fine.” She pointed to the dark corner junction at Sixth and Sherman and then reached for her door. “I’ll walk.”

  “No, you won’t.” He gunned it, speeding through a yellow light and over a curb. “I don’t care what your last name is, I’m not dropping a woman off on a dark street corner alone.”

  “Levi, don’t—”

  He swerved into the parking lot of the gallery, the squeal of his brakes equal to the rage that spewed from her lips.

  “That was completely unnecessary. You knew I didn’t want a scene
!”

  “News flash, Shelby. You are a scene.” He shot her a smile that could melt metal.

  Her fingers shook as they fumbled with the lock. She yanked back on the door handle and proceeded to ram her shoulder into the frame for leverage. “Why won’t this thing open?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his truck idling roughly in the quiet of the night. “I’d be happy to assist you. Just say the word, princess.”

  “Urgh!”

  “Nope. Not the one I was looking for.”

  She rammed the door once more, and that time, it popped open.

  “I’d offer to walk you inside, but I think this is the part where you start pretending I don’t exist. I can’t quite remember the protocol from last time.”

  A sharp tap of metal against his window stilled his hand on his driver’s side door.

  And then he went blind.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Gia, turn that thing off!” Rayne rounded the front of Levi’s truck, her heels clicking against the asphalt in a clipped trot.

  With calculated ease, Gia lowered the police-issue Maglite from Levi’s face and swung the beam onto Rayne—making a full and complete pass over her borrowed shirtfront. “Really, Rayne?”

  “I’m . . . it’s not what it looks like.” Rayne’s fingers stumbled over the buttons, plucking them free one by one.

  Levi rolled his window down and leaned into the open air in his white cotton undershirt, resting his elbow on the doorframe. “Is this where I get read my Miranda rights?”

  “Shouldn’t you have them memorized by now?”

  Levi dipped his chin. “Nice outfit, Gia.”

  She took a step toward him, her fringy jean shorts, paint-blotched T-shirt, and unlaced combat boots a sight to behold. She planted her feet shoulder width apart as if preparing for a street fight. “At least I’m wearing a real shirt.”

  “I’ll be sure to pass that along.”

  “You do that, and while you’re at it, tell your poker buddy to stop buying my pottery. My art is for connoisseurs. Not for bachelors in a need of a beer coaster.”

  “Oh, he’s more inventive than you give him credit for. In fact, I’m pretty sure Travis uses one of your bowls for composting.”