Raine's Haven

by Shari J. Ryan

  Raine's Haven

  Shari J. Ryan

  Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Raine’s Note

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  1. Haven

  2. Raine

  3. Haven

  4. Raine

  5. Haven

  6. Raine

  7. Haven

  8. Raine

  9. Haven

  10. Raine

  11. Haven

  12. Raine

  13. Haven

  14. Raine

  PART TWO

  15. Raine

  16. Haven

  17. Raine

  18. Haven

  19. Raine

  20. Haven

  21. Raine

  22. Haven

  23. Raine

  24. Haven

  25. Raine

  26. Haven

  27. Raine

  28. Haven

  29. Raine

  30. Haven

  31. Raine

  32. Haven

  33. Raine

  Raine’s Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Shari J. Ryan

  © 2017 Shari J. Ryan. All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Website: www.sharijryan.com

  Email: authorshariryan@gmail.com

  Mail: P.O. BOX 365, Northbridge, MA 01534

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  Editor: Lisa Brown, Looking Glass Revisions

  * * *

  ISBN-13: 978-1543040098

  ISBN-10: 1543040098

  Disclaimer: This book is intended for mature audiences.

  Adult situations, scenes, and language take place in this story.

  In Dedication to:

  Those who know the struggle of hard work and never giving up.

  True success is defined by the blood, sweat, and tears we endure along our journeys.

  It’s always the hard way that grants us true self-satisfaction in the end.

  Acknowledgments

  It takes a team of amazing women to help me publish a book and I couldn’t do this without those integral ladies.

  Lisa, my forever editor, thank you for always blending your skills so perfectly with my visions and words. We work so seamlessly together, it’s a comfort to know we’re always on the same page.

  Linda, thank you for always keeping me in line, and lifting me up when I’m nervous or unsure. You are one kickass marketing mogul, and I don’t know what I’d do without you!

  Renee, you have offered me a great deal of help over these past few months and it’s comforting to know the type of support I have. Thank you for believing in me and my books. Your honesty and hard work are appreciated in more ways than I could ever explain. Thank you for everything!

  Stephanie, the voice of calm in my life. Thank you for putting up with my craziness these past couple of years. Your passion for books and your authors makes me feel lucky to be your friend.

  Annelle, you are my sounding board, my shoulder to cry on, and the queen of making me laugh. I’m so grateful for our friendship and the bond we’ve created over the last couple of years.

  My beta readers: Lori, Renee, Annelle, Tanya, Heather, Alissa, Jocelyn, Belinda, Kelly, Erin D., Barb S., Val, Coleen, Erin K., Michele, Crystal, and Barb M. – You ladies honestly rock my world, and I question daily why I’m so lucky enough to have your incredible amount of support. To tell you I’m grateful for the help you give me is a total understatement. Your feedback and honesty have helped mold my stories into something better than I could have hoped for. Thank you so so so much for your hard work and support.

  Readers, I think it’s safe to say, my books would be nothing without you. Thank you for taking a chance on my books.

  Bloggers, your hard work never goes unnoticed with me and your selflessness to help us authors is always so appreciated. Thank you for your hard work and continuous support. It means the world to me.

  My family and friends, thank you for putting up with my mood swings as I navigate throughout the writing process over and over. It takes a big toll on my head, and you have all come to accept me for who I am (a person who maybe hides away for a week or two a time and shuts the world out).

  Lori, Mom, Dad, Mark, Ev, Grandma, and Papa – I have the best family in the entire world. I love you more than I could ever put into words.

  My little boys, Bryce and Brayden, I hope I succeed at teaching you the true enjoyments in life and show you how good it feels to have hard work turn into personal success. Work your butts off and NEVER give up, no matter how easy a shortcut might look.

  Josh, thank you for being an amazing husband, picking up my pieces when my brain is fried, and always being understanding when I look like I stuck my finger into a socket after a month of edits. I love you more than anything.

  Prologue

  I only needed to hear this story once. When I was twelve years old, Granddad sat me down on one of the white, wooden porch chairs in front of our house and placed his hand on my knee. “I think you’re old enough now to know the truth, Raine,” he began.

  No one is ever old enough to know certain truths. I believe that wholeheartedly now.

  “What is it, Granddad?” I asked, looking into his tired eyes. In those eyes, I saw a darkness that had grown over the years.

  “Raine, we live in a world filled with great people, but there are also some people who—well, some people receive gifts from God when they don’t deserve them.”

  “You mean, there are bad people in this world,” I correct him.

  “That’s not what I said. It’s just that some people don’t care about others as much as they care about themselves. I would call them selfish, but not necessarily bad.”

  “Like my parents?” I calmly asked him, as if it didn’t hurt to confirm what I had wondered. Carly and Rick were only names spoken out loud occasionally. They were never referred to as a mom and dad because they weren’t around long enough to be my parents.

  “Well, yes, unfortunately. Carly—your mother—had a problem with a drug you’ve probably heard of…cocaine.”

  Of course I had heard of cocaine before, but I never suspected that anyone I knew used it, least of all my mother.

  “As you probably know, cocaine is a drug some people can’t stop taking once they start, no matter how hard they try.” I learned about drugs in school, but I couldn’t understand why people couldn’t stop themselves from doing something so bad. “You see, when women get pregnant, they need to follow certain rules to keep the baby safe.”

  “Rules?” I asked.

  “Sure. You need to make healthy food decisions and stay away from certain foods and drinks, things that could make the baby sick while he’s in his mother’s belly.”

  “So, like soda? That’s not healthy, right?”

  Granddad laughed at me. I would have laughed at my innocence too. “Soda isn’t great to have during pregnancy,” he said with a smile. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. Carly continued to use cocaine while she was pregnant with you, and that’s worse than any bad food or drink.”

  “Oh.” I was confused and trying hard to piece together what he was saying.

  “When a mother takes a drug while she is pregnant, it’s like the baby is using the very same drug, except the baby isn’t big enough to handle it as a grown up can. The doctors pleaded with your mother to change her unhealthy habit, but she loved cocaine too much to stop.”

  “She loved it more
than me?” I asked. Yes. She loved cocaine more than me. Dad did too.

  “I don’t know the answer to that, Raine. I do know she wasn’t strong enough to make that decision. Drugs like cocaine do that to people. That’s one of the reasons they’re illegal.”

  “What happened, then?” I asked him.

  Granddad pulled in a full breath and leaned back into his porch chair that creaked and moaned against his weight. “When you were born, the doctors had to take you to an isolated part of the hospital so they could help you get the cocaine out of your body.”

  “How did they do that?” I asked, curious, not knowing what any of this truly meant at the time.

  Granddad’s big sage eyes welled with tears, and his chin trembled as he looked over at me. “Honestly, Raine, we’re lucky you’re alive. I’ve never seen something so heartbreaking in my whole life. You were born a month too early and weighed only one pound. You were so small and helpless. Between that and the internal pain, the doctors said you were feeling, you were inconsolable for weeks. Your cry shattered my heart. I’ve never felt pain like I did while sitting there day after day, waiting for you to feel okay for the first minute in your short life.”

  “That’s why I have the problem I do now, isn’t it?” My simple question was so innocent.

  “The doctors were confident you’d outgrow the side effects, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to cope with what we’ve been left with.”

  “So, this is forever?” I’m not sure I understood what forever meant back then.

  Granddad slipped off his chair and struggled to his knees as if he were going to start praying. With a slight groan, he kneeled right in front of me and made a promise. As the wind blew against the few white strands of hair left on his head, he began, “We have medication that works, and we should be grateful for that. You’re going to be okay,” he said, looking right into my eyes. “That is my promise to you. As long as I’m alive, you will never feel that pain again.”

  I believed every word he said, and I never considered what might happen to that promise when he died before I was old enough to care for myself. I also never thought much about the fact that there are plenty of sick people in this world—people besides my parents—people who would never care about another person.

  Drugs may turn people into assholes, but so do other things, and some people are just born assholes.

  P A R T

  O N E

  The sun’s desperate struggle to break through the clouds always permeates the white sky with vibrant light and reflecting colors, forming unseen paths for those who are lost.

  1

  Haven

  The rumble of his engine pulls me out of my comatose state induced by watching endless reruns of Nashville. I thrash my lilac-patterned comforter off to the side as my feet fall to the cold hardwood floor. The truck door slams, metal against metal, urging me to creep to the window where I peek outside to appease my assumptions. It's Saturday and ten in the morning. As always, he's punctual…never a minute early, never a minute late.

  Six feet of tall, dark, and beautiful, steps out of his truck right into the blazing sun as the orange rays illuminate the dark strands of his hair, forming auburn highlights I haven’t noticed before. His eyes appear half lidded today as if he’s tired from what must have been a late night that bled into this morning. I can't help wondering what he was doing, or who for that matter. That man, with all his allure, must have women eating out of the palm of his hand—with the slight swagger in his walk, the way his jeans hug his ass, even the way he mows; he oozes sex.

  I continue to observe as he stretches each of his muscled arms overhead while glancing toward my window. Can he see me? Does he know I'm here, watching him? No more than a second passes when his gaze falls from me—my window—and he moves around to the back of his truck where his equipment is.

  I have exactly seventeen minutes before he tends to the lawn outside of my window and thirty-three minutes before he trims the nearby hedges.

  "Haven," Mom yells from outside of my room. "I'm fixing to go to the grocery store. Why don't you come with me?"

  I step away from the window, flopping back onto my bed. "No. Thank you," I assert. "I'm not dressed in the appropriate attire for that type of occasion." The level of my sarcasm is enough to provoke more questions. There’s always a fine line between annoying her just enough so she walks away and pushing her to continue the fight.

  The door to my bedroom opens, and Mom is standing in the one beam of light raging in from the open window. "It's ten o'clock. Why aren't you dressed?" she asks, as the muffled ring on her phone blares against her smothering grip. With a quick glance at the display, she holds a finger up. "Oh, dear, hang on a moment." She re-closes the door and steps back into the hallway. I listen as she blabs loud enough for me to hear. "Of course we'll be there this evening, Mrs. Lake. Frederick and I wouldn't miss it for the world," she gushes, bubbling with fake excitement.

  Another Saturday night alone, just my books and me. I didn't ask to be a part of a family where everyone is too busy to acknowledge each other, nor did I ask to be a self-proclaimed prisoner of this four-thousand-square-foot house that feels like an endless maze of rooms—most of which we don't use. It has been five years since our normal lives turned into this. Five years since Dad "came into money" and subsequently became the mayor of this town. Thankfully, I only have a short time left before I can break free from the lifestyle of the rich and obnoxious. Then, I'll be able to go out in public without an hour lecture, warning me of what I can say and what I can't. I can't say my dad—the mayor—stole a lot of money. I want to say it, but evidently, that's considered being a rebel, rather than a good Samaritan.

  Mom opens the door once more with a sigh. "Are you sure you don't want to join me? I figured you might need the fresh air. It's not healthy to stay inside all the time." She pauses for a moment, giving me a once-over. "Of course, you would need to shower and get dressed, though. You almost look ill like that. Are you feeling okay?" Dad has a reputation to uphold. Being the mayor of a small town does not come without moral and physical obligations. Detaining their daughter until I adhere to these qualities and lies is also necessary. However, only they think they're holding me hostage. The people in this town think I'm a sick person, frail and too weak to leave the house. What other assumptions could there be when the mayor's daughter is missing from most town events and gatherings?

  Along with my distaste for community, our appearances, and the way I'm supposed to act, I'm homeschooled too and will continue to be until I "change," and agree to act in accordance with their standards. Otherwise, I could hurt Dad's image, and they can’t allow that.

  Mom only offers to take me out of the house because she knows I will not slip into a daytime dress and heels, and cake my face up with makeup just so we can visit the Main Street grocery store for an hour. She likely spent two hours fixing herself up for this lone trip to purchase food.

  "No," I respond with an exaggerated sigh. "I think my poor little mouth is feeling kind of frisky today."

  "Haven…really…I don't appreciate your attitude or threats. Have it your way, though. Lord have mercy, I can’t deal with you sometimes." Don't I always have it my way? The door closes, and a conversation in the hallway commences between Mom and Dad. "Honey, I reckon she'll come around soon," Dad says. "She's a teenage girl testing her boundaries. Eventually, she will appreciate the life we're giving her. We are doing the right thing."

  "Are we?" Mom asks. They won't win this one. I refuse to be someone I'm not. A thief. "I miss our daughter, is all."

  "And she will grow out of this, Pamela. All teenagers go through this at some point."

  "How would you know?" she snaps.

  Their conversation ends as fast as it began. Then, as always, Dad locks himself into his office on the other side of the house, and Mom's Mercedes peels out of the driveway.

  I look at the clock on my wall, noting I have five minutes until my eye candy�
�and only excitement for the week—mows the area of grass in front of my bedroom.

  I glance back out of my window and see him striding back and forth with his mower. Back and forth, back and forth. As I continue to watch, I notice his steady gaze is locked on the lawn ahead as he listens to music through his headphones. I love the way he looks while concentrating. Back and forth, closer and closer. He's mesmerizing.

  As if he knows I'm waiting for him, he releases the gas on the mower, pausing as he yanks off his sweat-covered, navy blue shirt, revealing the chiseled, tan body I drool over every week. Beads of sweat have formed in the crevice between his chest muscles, and the freckles that were dull in the cooler months are becoming darker and more prominent now that we are in the middle of summer.

  He runs his fingers through his overgrown hair, pushing away the loose strands that have fallen into his eyes, then runs the back of his arm across his forehead. It must be hotter than usual outside because it’s hotter than the devil’s armpit inside our air-conditioned house. As he tucks his shirt into the waist of his grass-stained jeans, he restarts the mower, just like he reignites me every time I see him.

  I've stood at this window every week for the past six months that he has been mowing our lawn, watching and waiting for him to notice me. We have made eye contact twenty-three times, and he has smiled at me twenty-one times. Today, I'm not looking for a smile, though. Today, I'm looking for something different—something more. This is what loneliness has done to me. It has turned me into a desperate person who yearns for attention, any kind of attention.

  I keep my head turned to the side, waiting and watching for him to appear in plain view. With the roar growing louder, my heart thunders inside of my chest as he passes by my window the first time—now less than ten feet away from where I'm standing. His stare catches mine just as I fall from his line of sight. Like I hoped.