"Please, just let me walk back to town," I beg. I can't bear to listen to this anymore, which yes, I know is horrible considering he doesn't have the option of walking away.
"Why did you run away from your 'almost fiancé?'" He mocks my voice and words, taunting me, trying to get under my skin, and he can. He could stick a pin under my fingernail and I'd deserve that.
I hiss a soft laugh, understanding how absolutely screwed up my night has become. "Because, Raine—"
"Why?" he says, more sternly this time.
"There are a couple of reasons, but the biggest one—I want to live. I want to feel my pulse race. I want to sweat, feel fear, and excitement. I don't want this," I wave at the dress I have on. "I want—"
"What? What do you think you want, Haven?"
"You know what I want." My words are so quiet they almost become lost within the small breeze passing by.
"Well, if your nearly worn off red lipstick is any indication," he says with a sigh, letting his hands dip into his pockets. "That's not an option." He turns away from me and walks back toward the motel and back into the room he walked out of.
“I’ve thought of you every single day since that night,” I yell after him, but he doesn’t pause his step or look back at me.
Finally being near Raine again after all these years has my stomach twisted into a knot, but as I watch him walk back into that woman’s room, my heart breaks with a pain I have no right to be feeling after all of this time. Imagining him with her makes me feel sick.
After denying a marriage proposal and scaring off the only other man I've ever been interested in on the same day, maybe I should reconsider my choices. Maybe I do belong with Bennett, despite what he did to me earlier this year. There’s a good chance that Raine is no longer the same man I once loved, and he may never forgive me for what happened all those years ago. It is what I deserve. Karma. Maybe love isn't always the tie that keeps a couple together. It could just be the companionship or the comfort. Bennett doesn’t make me feel the way Raine used to, but I could probably be content with him.
I pull out my phone, seeing the dozens of missed calls and texts from Bennett. Holding my finger down on his number, I hold the phone up to my ear. With my other arm wrapped around my midsection, I cower over to block the wind.
"Haven?" Bennett answers.
"I'm at The Motel in Sutter."
"What? Is someone with you? Why are you even in that—that—God—that town, Haven? What are you thinking?"
"I'm alone in the middle of the parking lot. Would you mind coming to get me? Or—um, I could call Maryanne or a cab." I should have just called a cab and gone home to Mom and Dad's. Explaining to them why I'm not with Bennett tonight might be easier than explaining to Bennett why I don't want to marry him.
"A cab?" he shouts into the phone. "Don't be ridiculous, Haven. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Just—just, go into that bar or something." No. That bar was the worst mistake of my life, or maybe the best. I'm still undecided.
"Okay." I hear him fumble with something briefly, and Maryanne mumble something in the background before the phone goes silent.
As the minutes creep by, I stare over toward the room Raine walked into, wondering what's happening behind those doors. He didn't look happy when he walked out before, but clearly, he was eager to get back in there. I don't hear any moans or screams this time, but I'm also farther away. Who is this woman he’s with so soon after being released from prison?
Never mind. I probably don’t want to know the answer.
As if a subtle answer to my question appears from nowhere, I hear the door of the bar open and close, followed by two men shouting at each other. The biker bar—the place where lucky girls find bad boys, and bad boys get lucky. Unless of course, two unlucky men are fighting over a girl. I've heard the stories. The men are throwing punches, and one of them is instantly knocked to the ground. I back away slowly, hoping they don't spot me alone in the parking lot.
As I reach a lamp pole, I try to conceal as much of myself behind it as I can. Their voices continue to grow louder and more people make their way outside, many of whom join in the fight. It's like a full out brawl now.
"Hey," I hear another voice yell across the lot, and I look in each direction, trying to see where it's coming from. Then I see Raine standing in the doorway of his motel room in nothing but boxer shorts. Holy crap. I didn’t need to see that right now. "Get over here," he barks at me.
Knowing it’s my safest choice, I scamper across the lot and over to the motel room. Raine grabs my arm and pulls me into the room where I'm greeted by a naked woman lying on the bed. She's passed out, I think. I hope. No. Why is this happening?
"I don't want to be in here. Oh, my God... What—is that smell?" My nose seems to crinkle on its own. It smells like a combination of stale cigarettes, pee, and…I think, sex. Kind of like that bar, from what I remember. "You two an item?" I look over at the naked woman again, taking in the array of tattoos covering most of her skin. A match made in heaven, I suppose.
"Why do you care?" he asks. "Shouldn't you be halfway back to Cascade by now?"
"Because I do care. And Bennett is coming to pick me up." I turn around, needing to avoid looking at this emaciated, trashy woman.
"Is Bennett your 'almost fiancé'?"
"Why do you care?" I glance over at him with a raised brow, doing my best not to look at his chiseled body, which is covered by an array of artwork in the form of tattoos. That's new. Forcing myself to look away again, I peel the curtain away from the window, looking outside for headlights, but all I see are dozens of people fighting in the parking lot. The violence appears to be escalating as I watch a big burly guy pick up a smaller, scrawnier guy and heave him through the air. The poor man lands and skids across the asphalt. Having seen enough, I release the curtain. Good God.
The woman on the bed begins to stir and her eyes slowly open, finding me standing in front of her. "You brought us a friend?" she croaks out with a half-smile. Gross.
"No, she's leaving in a minute," Raine growls.
My phone buzzes and I look out the window, seeing the lights to Bennett's Aston Martin beaming toward the motel. "I have to go."
Raine places a hand on my back and guides me toward the door. "Take care of yourself and your Prince Charming out there. Oh, and don't ever forget that you're too good for this place." His words weren't meant to be kind. They were meant to hit me where it hurts. And I feel the intended pain.
I open the door and slip out, heading toward Bennett's car. When he sees me, he drives forward, meeting me in the middle of the lot. "What the hell are you doing at this dump?" he asks before the door is fully open. "And who the hell is that?" In the three years I've known Bennett, I've never heard him cuss. I follow his gaze, seeing Raine standing in the open doorway, still in nothing but his boxers. "Is that—?" I swallow hard, not wanting to answer any of the incoming questions, but also knowing I don’t have a better response.
"Yes, that's Raine. No, I didn't sleep with him. No, I didn't plan to see him tonight, and no, I'm not planning to see him again."
Because he hates me.
19
Raine
Watching Haven drive off with her fiancé stirs something up inside of me, and I'm not sure what it is. I wonder what the douchebag knows or doesn't know about me. Haven may be full of apologies but did she ever consider telling anyone the truth, besides me? A sick part of me wishes for karma to take its effect on her life. I thought if I ran into her, maybe she'd be overweight or hideous. Now I see that karma did take her for a ride, and she's still holding on for dear life, ready to fall off at any second. The Haven I knew, or thought I knew, didn't want the life she's living. Well, good.
Feeling exhausted from this day, I debate returning to Crystal's side or going back to sleep on that nice bench in the park. "Raine," Crystal shouts. "Why you standing outside in your underwear?" Proving a point. I scratch at my brow and turn around to walk back inside. "Re
ady for round three?" Crystal runs her tongue across her top teeth, and I think she's trying to seduce me, but…I’ve had enough for one day and I just want to get some sleep.
"I'm beat," I tell her.
"You know what I can beat?" she says through a sloppy slur.
"Yeah, I think I’m good," I tell her, falling back into the bed. I fold my arms behind my head and close my eyes, ignoring the scowl on Crystal’s face. Yup, I’m using you for a place to sleep tonight. Deal with it. I’m expecting her to kick me out, but the bed bounces only seconds after I close my eyes. What the—? I push up on my elbows, looking down at Crystal, who's passed out with her mouth hanging open. Jesus. I push her to the side and roll over to try and pretend she isn’t here. I just need to forget everything that led up to falling asleep in this bed tonight and focus on the plushness of the bed I once called a wooden plank, years ago. The pillow feels like a thick cloud and the scent of detergent on the linen could be its own perfume as far as I'm concerned. Sleeping is no problem for me, but shutting everything else out is.
The stress of dreading my nightmares causes a weak spell of tremors to work through me, which means I'll have a sweet old migraine in the morning and an ache in my back that'll linger for the next week. Now that I’m getting closer to thirty, that's what my condition has developed into. More side effects of my mother’s lifestyle while pregnant with me. Thanks, Carly. I reach for my pants and snatch the bottle of pills out of my back pocket. The one good thing about prison was that they fed me the pills I needed to keep my body from going haywire every day. I tap the container into my hand, finding I only have one left. That’s that. It's back to the good old days of suffering. I dry swallow the pill and fall back down into the pillow.
"Raine, can I talk to you a minute?" Granddad shouts from the back deck.
I excuse myself from Lenore's daily cooking lesson as Lauren teases me. "Ohh, you're in troubbbbble," she giggles, cupping her hand over her mouth. I can't help but laugh because Lauren's laugh is contagious.
"Maybe you're the one in trouble," I tell her. "Maybe Granddad is warning me of a smackdown coming your way." She gasps and yanks on Lenore's sleeve. "Mama!"
"He's just joking around with you, Lauren," Lenore assures her. "You two are worse than a brother and sister, you know that?" Over the years, Lauren and I have become like brother and sister, except she's old enough to be my mother. She's here all the time now since the special school she used to go to closed due to financial problems. I think she's better off here with us, anyway. I don’t think she liked that place much. "What's up, Granddad?" I ask, slapping the top of the sliding back door on the way outside. "Or should I ask what I did this time?"
"You know, kid. I don't know when you became such a wiseass, but you remind me a whole lot of myself," he says through laughter. "Come on over here and have a seat." He pats the cushioned wooden bench beside his lounging chair. This can't be good. He never asks me to sit down when he needs to tell me something. Granddad is the type of man that needs to look a person in the eye and hold their shoulder firmly in his grip while raising a brow throughout his worldly advice or lecture.
I take a seat and lean forward, resting my elbows on my legs. "Okay, so what gives?"
Granddad pulls in a loaded breath and rests his hand on my knee. "I got some bad news today."
Thoughts race through my head but nothing solid enough to guess what kind of bad news he could have gotten. The only people he gives a damn about are me, Lenore, and Lauren, and they both seem fine. "Okay…"
"Well, you know how I've been getting those headaches and dizzy spells for the past few months?" I don't like where this is going.
"Yeah, the ones I told you to go to the doctor for?" Granddad doesn't like doctors, therefore, he avoids them like no one I've ever met. "Did you finally listen to me?"
"I did," he says shortly.
"So then, what's going on? What's causing them? Did they give you some kind of meds?"
He looks at me for a long minute, then his eyes cast downward. "I actually went a couple of weeks ago. They ran some tests. All that stuff I can't stand. Then they made me wait until today for the results. Isn't that inhumane?"
"Granddad?" He's stalling. It's bad. He stalls when he can't find the words to say what he needs to say.
"Well, it turns out I've got a tumor the size of a small orange living in my brain," he says, pointing to the top of his head.
My heart turns cold, like I swallowed a cube of ice, and it's lodged inside my chest. "Well, can they fix it?"
"I waited too long," he says, shamefully.
"What? What do you mean? You're still here. It can't be too late to try and get rid of it, right?"
"It spread, Raine."
Everything inside of me tightens like a rope being tugged on from both sides. "What are you saying?"
"They gave me a month, tops."
I stand up as the rage fuels through me, angry at no one, yet angry at everyone at the same time. "You can't leave me," I say, selfishly. "You're all I have. Don't you know that? This is why I told you to go to the goddamn doctor a million times. You wouldn't listen to me. Now what? Now you're going to go and leave me, just like you promised you would never do." I'm going to regret every word coming out of my mouth in a month's time, but right now I don’t care. I can't control myself.
"I deserve to hear that, Raine. I screwed up big time. I did." Granddad looks down to his folded hands, hanging his head with shame. "I can't even say I'm sorry because it won't do a damn thing to fix this."
I want to ask him where I'll go. Who the hell is going to be my guardian for the year until I'm eighteen? That should be the least of my worries right now. The one man—the one person who didn't let me down in life, is about to drop me on my ass. I never took him for granted. From a young age, I morbidly understood the life I was supposed to have, and I understood the life he saved me from having. No grandparent should have to raise a kid when they're in their sixties. He did his time, and it was supposed to be the golden years for him. Instead, he spent all of those golden years raising me, giving me everything a person could give another, and truly being the father I never had.
"We should get a second opinion," I tell him.
"Raine," he says, grabbing my arm. He pulls me back to my seat and forces me to look at him. "Listen to me, grandson. We don't have a say this time, okay? I've spent the last two weeks scared out of my mind, coming up with end of life plans, hoping I wouldn't need them, but as it turns out…I do."
"End of life plans? What the hell—"
Granddad clears his throat. "Let me finish, Raine." He tries to smile through the evident fear draining the color on his face. "You know you're never going to have to worry about money, okay? You, Lenore, and Lauren are the only people in my will, and y’all will be taken care of. You won't ever need a thing. You won't even have to work if you don't want to, but I want you to work, Raine. You understand? It's a part of life."
"Do we have to do this now?" I ask him. I have to digest this or something. This is all too much.
"Yes, we do. I have up to a month, which means I could drop dead tomorrow. So, we're doing this now." Each of his words comes out as if he's telling me we lost the football game this week. "Anyway, since I'm not going to make it to your eighteenth birthday, Lenore is going to take care of you here in the house until then. Once you turn eighteen, you’ll have money—this house, my cars. Everything. But," he says, emphasizing the word strongly. "I need to finish raising you right, up until the day you turn eighteen, whether I'm here or not. So, with that being the case, the only thing you need to promise me right now is that you'll stay in school. Don't run away or do anything to get yourself in any trouble. You can do that for me, right?" He knows I'd never do anything different.
"Granddad, I won't let you down."
"I know you won't, Raine, because you turned out to be one hell of a man."
The sun still looks the same as I remember it did when I stayed at this mot
el all those nights before prison. The white blinds are tarnished and old, which makes them look yellow at this time in the morning because of the sun's angle. I turn over, finding Crystal still passed out in the same spot I left her last night. I pull out my wallet and throw twenty of my last thirty bucks on the nightstand for the motel room, and the services she rendered last night. I figure I better keep on her good side, in case I need to crash with her again.
Careful not to make a sound, I slip on my clothes and carry my boots outside so I don't chance waking her up. Ignoring the old butts and wet puddles on the cement stairs, I pad barefoot down to the parking lot and drop down on the bottom step to put on my socks and boots. After I tie up the laces, I look up, finding the aftermath of last night's typical parking lot brawl.
Broken glass is everywhere, mixed in with a shit ton of trash. That blows. As my gaze drifts across the lot, I see Kacee sweeping up the mess in front of the bar. Debating for only a second whether I should say hi or not, I make my way over to her. "Need any help?"
"Raine Carson?" she says with very little surprise. "Is it really you?" She sounds weird asking me this, like she knows it’s me but trying to pretend she isn’t sure about it at the same time.
"Um, yeah, it's...me. I was wondering if you didn't recognize me last night," I tell her, taking the broom from her hands.
"I honestly wasn’t sure if it was you last night...you look...so different.” She cracks her neck from side to side while folding her arms across her chest. "Crow is going to flip a nut when he hears you're out."
"Yeah, I'm sure he'll be real disappointed to hear the news." Not doing much to conceal my feelings about Crow and the way we left things after he kicked me out, I continue sweeping a mound of glass into the growing pile.
"You kidding me?" she says. "He felt like the biggest asshole in the world when he heard the news about you being arrested."
"He never came to visit or anything," I say, calling her bluff.
Raine's Haven Page 15
