by Nicole Deese
As if stunned into momentary silence, Celeste waited several beats before forcing a tight smile and gritting out the words, “I will expect a full work-up of the projected costs and reimbursement plan from FEMA on my desk by late afternoon, Rayne.”
Her cousin didn’t glance back as she exited the study, leaving Rayne alone with her uncle.
Cal studied Rayne for so long she wondered if she’d missed his dismissal cue.
“Call Teddy. You can offer him the night shift back,” he said. “We’ll need all hands on deck to make this work.”
Another victory.
“I will, thank you.” A question she’d forgotten to ask her uncle last night popped into her head. “What about pets? Small ones. Like harmless little cats.”
He crossed his arms. “I hate pets.”
“Yes, but think of the cameras, the coverage . . .” A stretch for sure.
He sighed and flicked at a piece of lint on his black suit coat. “Fine. Small ones only. And they must be in their cages.”
Crates, but okay. “Got it.”
“And Rayne?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let me down. I don’t offer second chances often.”
The magical high she’d felt seconds before swooped in for a crash landing.
“I won’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rayne snapped her head upright at the sound of the text chime and searched haphazardly for her phone. She squinted at the too-bright screen and fumbled for her glasses.
10:34 a.m.
Levi: So I offer to help drive an old lady away from potential harm and then get stuck playing cat sitter all night? You play dirty, Rayne Shelby.
She’d gone back to her cabin to start the necessary phone calls and procedures, but somewhere in the last two hours, she’d fallen asleep facedown on her sofa.
Despite her delirious fog, she typed on the tiny phone screen.
Rayne: Sorry, I’ll come pick her up ASAP.
Levi: You still at the lodge?
She shielded her eyes from the beacon of digital light and attempted four separate replies to explain what the last twelve hours had entailed.
Finally, she gave up and decided she was better off explaining it to him in person.
Rayne: Is Ford gone?
Levi: Out in the backwoods on the backhoe.
Rayne: I’ll be over in ten.
Levi: Good. That will give me plenty of time to get Miss P out of the garden shed.
Rayne: Not funny.
Levi: Not a joke.
Rayne swept her hair into a high ponytail, brushed her teeth, and stepped into her only pair of flip-flops. The morning felt unusually warm, even for mid-July, but even more unusual was the layer of orangey fog that masked her view of the property line. More smoke had settled overnight while she’d been researching away on her laptop.
Her stride was quick until she reached the fence and slid between the open slats like a professional outlaw.
Levi held the fluffy cat out his open doorway. “Not a moment too soon.”
Rayne cradled Penelope to her chest. “That isn’t very nice. Her owner’s been through a lot.” She stroked the feline’s silky fur and met Levi’s probing stare.
“You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
Not weeks, just days. “I’m great.”
Concern crimped his brow. “Did you not sleep before your shift last night?”
“I didn’t really work last night—well, technically, I worked all night, just not my usual night-shift duties.”
His concern morphed into confusion. “You’re making so much sense right now.” He pointed to his couch. “Sit. I’ll make you some coffee.”
“I actually can’t stay, Levi. I need to compare notes with Celeste and make a game plan for—”
Levi stopped short of the kitchen and retreated his steps. “You either need to start from the beginning or start from the beginning. I’m not following you today, sweets.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and tried to organize her scattered thoughts. “We’re turning the lodge into a shelter.”
If she hadn’t witnessed that same expression earlier this morning, she would have repeated herself. But Levi wasn’t hard of hearing; he was simply sifting through the validity of her statement.
“You’re turning the lodge into a fire shelter. For evacuees.”
With all the enthusiasm she could muster on two hours of sleep, she nodded. The lilt in her laugh seemed to have Levi drawing closer as if to examine her sanity level.
“And your uncle approved this act of community benevolence, why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. The community needs us right now, Levi. Hundreds of families have been displaced. We have the room and the staff and the—”
“Rayne.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t answer my question. What’s his angle for doing this?”
Penelope climbed up her shirt and propped her plump self on the back of the sofa, swatting Rayne’s hair. “Ouch.”
Levi bowed. “Welcome to my personal cat hell.”
Despite his deadpan tone, she snickered at the mental image of Levi batting away cat paws all night long.
“You’ll think it’s funny until the thing tries to gouge out your eyeballs,” he said.
“Awww . . . is someone afraid of a sweet little kitty cat?” Rayne gathered the animal in her arms and kissed her between the ears.
“Well, right now I’m not nearly as afraid as I am jealous.”
Rayne scooted to the edge of the sofa, needing an extra dose of support to push herself into a standing position. “How about I’ll call you after I get through my checklist.”
“You really won’t stay and have a cup of coffee with me?”
Those darn puppy-dog eyes pleaded with her. “Technically my shift has already started.”
“Your shift? You moved back to days?”
She struggled to her feet, Penelope’s tail curling around her arm like a serpent. “Oh yes, I guess in all the excitement I forgot to mention that part. Teddy is going to start back up tonight. I’m so relieved.”
“That’s great.” But nothing about his body language seemed to agree with his statement. Levi stepped into the kitchen, saying nothing more as he removed two ceramic mugs. A soothingly familiar aroma tinged the air a moment later as coffee brewed into the old-style pot.
“Are you trying to tempt me into staying longer than I should?” she asked with a hint of humor.
He pressed his palms to the counter’s edge and hunched his back. “I don’t know what I’m trying to do anymore.”
“Levi.” She pinched her eyebrows together, trying to force her brain to cooperate. “We’ll still see each other.”
“You keep saying that, and yet here we are again, counting down the minutes before our relationship goes into yet another underground tunnel.”
She set the cat onto his couch and moved toward him, the ache in her chest palpable. Wrapping her arms around his middle, she pressed her cheek to his taut back. “I don’t want to stop seeing you.”
He rotated and pressed his lips to the crown of her head. “I don’t want to stop seeing you either.”
There was a but coming. She could feel it, even through her exhaustion. She tilted her chin upward and nearly buckled under the sincerity of his gaze.
“Let me help you with the shelter.”
She pushed back, but he refused her efforts. “That’s impossible.”
“Why?” He repositioned his grip on her waist. “What if there’s an opportunity for us in all of this—in the fires and the evacuations? We can join forces, become a united front. Cal couldn’t deny us in such a public position.”
“Levi, be serious—”
“I am. When that lodge transforms into a shelter, the doors are going to be open to everybody, not just the elite and the affluent. Your guests will be modest families, neighborhood merchants, local farmers. Regular folks. My kind of peop
le.”
“Please tell me your plan doesn’t involve disguising yourself as a Bear Canyon evacuee.”
He laughed. “No, but Second Harvest has plenty of produce and supplies to donate for such a worthy cause, especially with a FEMA tax write-off. Ford might not be our biggest fan, but he’s—”
“What?” She broke away. “You told him about us? Why would you do that?”
“Are you really so bound to the judgments of your family that you won’t give him a chance? Even for me?”
“That man screwed my family.” A fact she’d stuffed into a back pocket of denial for too long.
He reached for her hips and pulled her close again. “Meet him, Rayne. Talk to him, just once. You’ll see that he’s not what you—”
“No.” She’d crossed a lot of lines for Levi. But she couldn’t cross that one. “You may think I’m different from the rest of the people who share my name, but that doesn’t change what’s written on my birth certificate. He deceived my family. Meeting him won’t change the past.”
“But what if we could change the future of the lodge and farm?”
“We can’t.” She thought about Cousin Milton, the mistakes that led him down a path of permanent ostracism. Couldn’t he see what she’d risked for him already? Why couldn’t that be enough?
“How did you get Cal to agree to the shelter?”
She looked away.
“Rayne.”
He brushed the pad of his thumb over the dimple on her chin. “How?”
She’d played to her uncle’s weakness. Stroked his greed. Built his ego. “I baited him by suggesting we use the shelter for my father’s campaign ads.”
For an instant, she couldn’t read the mixed expression that crept into Levi’s face. “It’s just, I knew it was the only way to—”
Levi shut her up with a kiss that awoke all her senses. He cupped the back of her head and pushed his fingers into her hair, his lips tender and firm and everything Rayne couldn’t bring herself to walk away from.
“You seized an opportunity,” he said, pulling back enough to finish the sentence she’d long forgotten. “Which is exactly what we need to do too. Together.”
Bewildered, she blinked up at him. “Don’t push this on me, Levi. I’m not ready.” A nagging voice told her she’d never be ready. She would no sooner parade Levi around the lodge than she’d agree to a social outing with Ford. Both options spelled ruin.
“Two days ago you wouldn’t have thought you’d be ready to open a shelter either. This is our opportunity, Rayne.”
No, it was a plank walk to certain death. Death of her dream. Death of her career. Death of her future.
At the sound of claws shredding fabric, they turned their heads toward the living room.
“Here.” Levi poured the coffee and practically shoved the mug into her hands. “Drink this and then please get that thing out of my house.”
She kissed his cheek, downed her coffee, and then delivered Penelope to her rightful owner.
All before her first showdown with Celeste.
They received the final stamp of approval from FEMA by noon: Shelby Lodge had officially become an evacuation shelter for families threatened by the Bear Canyon wildfires. And Rayne and her team had only hours to set up before the first evacuees arrived.
Using a dolly, Rayne rolled a stack of extra chairs into the Great Room. Sweat stuck to the underside of her bra straps and at the waistband of her jeans. She rocked her hip into a nearby table to catch her breath and pointed to the back wall near the window bay.
“I was thinking we could set up several buffet-style tables over there to allow lines to form on either side.”
“No,” Celeste said, hands anchored on her hips. “We aren’t going to lower our standards to hillbilly class. This isn’t some Podunk cafeteria.”
Rayne bit the insides of her cheeks and exhaled through her nose before responding to yet another objection from her second cousin. “Celeste, we agreed to work together on this. If we fill ourselves to capacity by tonight, we’ll need a better way to organize the meal chaos.”
“The lodge has had a waiting list nearly every summer. We can keep our traditional approach, even at capacity,” Celeste retorted.
“We’ve never been full of families.” Not by a long shot. The lodge catered to wealthy retired couples and upper-business-class singles. “Families will mean lots of young children. Our traditional dining style won’t work. Not for this. Delia’s already working on food orders for continental breakfasts, boxed lunches, and simple dinners.”
Not a second too soon, Gia sauntered through the open double-door entrance wearing her typical artist smock and Converse high-tops. “How goes it, ladies? Where do I sign up to be a camp counselor?”
Celeste groaned and shoved a round table toward the far wall. “Awesome, now I get to work with two country bumpkins.”
“Better that than an urban—”
Rayne shot Gia her best don’t-you-dare-stoop-to-her-level glare and simply stated, “We don’t have time for bickering. Our doors open to the public in less than two hours, and we still have a ton of work left to do in here. Gia, can you please grab the last stack of chairs from the hall closet?”
“Sure thing,” Gia replied with a casual salute.
“And, Celeste, why don’t you—”
“No.” Celeste stared her down. “You don’t get to boss me around. I’m your supervisor, not the other way around.”
“We’re equals in this.”
“That’s not the way I understood it.”
Three hours of broken sleep over the last thirty-six meant that every rebuttal in Rayne’s mental arsenal consisted of words she hadn’t spoken since Gia had made her “practice cuss” in the seventh grade. With the limited willpower she had left, she clamped down on the underused insults threatening to spew from her mouth and merely exhaled.
“Please, let’s try to get along. For the sake of our future guests.”
“You sound like one of those cliché pageant queens.” Celeste flashed a peace sign. “Peace. Love. Harmony. No wonder Cal called me when he did.”
She whirled out of the room.
“Whoa,” Gia said a moment later, studying Rayne’s sharpened face. “You should have called for backup sooner.”
“Can you do me a favor?” Rayne asked.
“I’m pretty sure I’m already doing you one, but shoot.”
“Find a Celeste-size tranquilizer, preferably before our guests arrive.”
Gia choked out a laugh. “Ya know, if I didn’t have to worry about bail money after the family cut me off, I’d seriously take you up on that.”
By the time the line formed outside Shelby Lodge, Rayne’s focus had splintered into a million different directions. Even with their streamlined check-in process—Gia assisting the volunteer crisis workers—chaos was unavoidable.
Every available common area in the lodge was crammed to capacity. Grandparents to babies to small, housebroken animals. And despite the extra workload, stress, and lack of sleep, Rayne had never felt so fulfilled in all her life.
Her dream was no longer confined to her heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Bucking hay in the middle of fire season could easily make a top five list for Worst Jobs in the World. Even still, Levi would gladly choose the backbreaking labor over watching another round of news crews enter and exit Shelby Lodge. He only had so much patience.
Rayne had asked him to wait. She’d asked him for time—more time for her to adjust to the idea of them working side by side at the shelter. Together. Only, every day that ticked by was another day of opportunity wasted.
Levi stabbed the prongs of his hay hooks through another bale of premium timothy hay and chucked it from the field into the flatbed. The driver of the truck—the fifteen-year-old son of Travis’s employer—inched along the field slowly enough for Travis and Levi to buck and stack the bales. With more reports of wildfires spreading to neighboring communiti
es, every hay farmer in the area seemed to be of the same mindset. Harvest now. To wait any longer would put too many livelihoods at risk.
Under the heat of a merciless sun, the once muted gray of Levi’s cotton shirt had darkened to a sweat-soaked shade of granite. The damp fabric clung to his chest and back, yet even while his gloved hands cramped around the hook handles, and his jeans felt both suffocating and constrictive, Levi remained grateful for the distraction. He would have been content to work the day away in shared silence, allow the burn in his muscles to clear his head of the drama surrounding them, but, like usual, his friend had other ideas.
Travis stretched his arms before puncturing another bale. “You hear about Benton’s ranch?”
“Yeah. Awful.” The charcoaled images of the equestrian center were burned into his mind’s eye. He’d met Roy Benton for the first time only a few months ago—a stand-up man looking to partner with Levi’s efforts at the farm. Enrich the local economy. Help spread the word about Second Harvest deliveries.
Levi shook his head and jogged along the trailer toward the last couple rows of baled hay. It’d be years before the Bentons could rebuild. Years before their facility would be up and running again. And while Levi felt certain the insurance claims would pay out, he also knew the charred remains that Roy would face day after day would be nothing short of demoralizing.
Structures could be rebuilt, but dreams . . . those were much harder to salvage after a tragedy.
“It’s nice to see so many people chipping in their time and money to help, though.” Travis wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his arm as they reached the next area of baled hay. “Like your neighbors.”
Levi climbed into the back of the flatbed without comment, unwilling to engage Travis in a conversation about the Shelbys. Especially today. With his jaw firmly set and his back a plank of rigid muscle, he stacked each new bale into a wall.
“Kind of ironic that the first time I saw the inside of that lodge was on the local news. Regular folk running in and out. Tons of kids and—”
“How many more bales do you think we can load on here this afternoon?”
