by Amarie Avant
“Why is one missing?” Elise pointed her mascara wand at her maid. It would be ironic for her servant to steal a spoon that was stolen from its master centuries ago.
“Liam took one,” Lucinda whispered, gaze to the ground.
Elise gave her a sideways glance. Did this woman lie to her face? Mother’s instincts made her eyes close momentarily. “How did my son know about the rings?”
“Pierre had me bring them down from the attic when Liam came. He showed them to Liam. When I put them back in the attic, one was gone.”
“Well, I don–” Elise stopped mid-sentence, one hand to her chest, breathing in and out. What if Liam used the ring to propose to Raven? I thought Papa fixed this problem, not twenty-four hours ago!
“You are excused.” Lost in her thoughts, Elise looked through Lucinda as if she were a ghost. The maid backed away and out of the room. Leaning back, Elise groaned.
Chapter 24
His mother had lied to him. That had to be the truth. His family was motivated by one primary goal: selfishness. Elise hated Raven. He knew it.
Raven is not my fucking sister, Liam told himself as he stood at the front door. He’d driven his motorcycle, needing the speed and the fresh air. On the way over, he’d come up with something brilliant to say. He waited for the door to open, ready to explain why he had stayed away a whole week. Of course, Liam avoided her. He’d tried to wait until the DNA results were back, but fuck it. This entire week away was torture enough and had given him time to rationalize their next step. The words were on the tip of his tongue. When Raven opened the door, the only words capable of tumbling out of his mouth were “I miss you,” as he looked into her depressed face. Speech had spread its wings and flown away–left him in the cold, no matter how hot it was outside.
She let him in, closing the door to the pre-summer heat. “What do you want?” Guarding herself, she folded her arms across her chest, but there was a glimmer of longing in her eyes. That love was a tiny seed of hope.
Stuffing his hands into designer jeans, Liam stepped closer to her. While time had ticked by, he’d determined that it was impossible for her to be his sister. It was the only way he was able to rationalize his addiction. “I need you.”
“Well, you don’t act like it. You’ve been avoiding me like I’m a damn disease. For a whole week.” Raven took a step back. “I’ve been neglected by Charlene! Granny is in the hospital with Grandpa Otis. Bet you don’t know the pneumonia passed–because you do not care. I found out that a long-term friend has been stabbing me in the back, and the other one might be my brother.” Her voice quivered. “I’ve been through enough crap in the past couple of months. All you had to do was talk to me.” She pushed his chest. “Just go!”
He didn’t budge. “I moved back to my parents’ house since the dorm rooms at Brinton Prep are getting ready for new students,” he started. Those weren’t the words that should’ve been coming out of his mouth. He needed to tell her that his grandfather was in town, keeping him busy with talk about running the hotel dimension of the Delacroix Corporation. Being near her had fogged his mind. He stepped closer; she stepped back.
Raven shook her head, looking at the floor. “No excuses.”
“I love you. Forgive me.” Liam had a look of possession in his eyes. She was his. He was obsessed with her smell, her voice, her face, everything about her. Liam didn’t tell Raven that he had tried for days to stop thinking about her and how he felt when he realized that it was…impossible. His thoughts always reverted back to Raven. Liam moved in slowly, touching her cheek, kissing his obsession.
“Just leave me alone.” Raven pushed him away. For her own soul, she had to try.
They sat next to each other on the couch, both looking across the tiny living room. His insides twisted. Okay… I’ll let her be mad for a while, but she’s mine.
“I’m pregnant.”
“Aren’t you on birth control?”
Her face reared back as if slapped. “Yes! I didn’t know I was supposed to take the pills for a week before they’d become effective. I just took them!”
Liam’s eyes met hers and froze for a fraction of a second. She seemed frantic as she tried to explain the process.
He got up from the couch. “Why haven’t you told me?”
With jittery legs, he paced around the area. Pierre had come to see him for this month’s pep talk. Liam intended to take Raven to Paris with him this fall. A baby presented a problem. I’m too young to be a father. He felt her eyes on him as he moved around the worn carpet. Maybe she brought this up to gauge how much he loved her? Sighing, he thought about the day Chris came in between them. The day at the ice cream shop, when Liam had wanted to tell her how much he’d loved her, even then. It was time to stop thinking and react. Say what he meant. But his brain just kept overanalyzing what was coming between them. A baby… Entrapment? Or a lie?
No. Liam knew Raven had to be pregnant, she wouldn’t use a lie as a snare. The dejected love was written all over her face, along with a mixture of nervousness as she bit her lip, and vulnerability showed in her glossy, blue eyes.
Closing his own eyes, Liam let his thoughts take over, tried to figure out what to do. Should we get rid of it? But Raven needs to feel like she can always depend on me… We can have another baby later–
“I didn’t know if I would keep it.” Raven’s words flooded through his thoughts. “Especially if you are my half-brother.”
Those words knocked the air out of his lungs. Now he felt like an ass. Why did I even hesitate about keeping the baby, our baby? He loved Raven with all of his heart. There was enough love for their child, too. He knelt to the floor in front of her, pushing up her T-shirt, and placed his face to her flat abdomen. Indescribable feelings of love washed over him. Breathing in slowly, he felt her soft hands on the back of his neck, stroking it like she often did when he was stressed. He stood back up.
As much as he wanted to, Liam had to keep his distance. They had to know the truth first. That his mother was a pathological liar. Why am I blaming my mom?
Liam took a deep breath. Elise didn’t have anything to do with Charlene and Jonathan’s actions.
“Go home, Liam.” Raven’s emotionless words weeded through his tormented psyche. She stood up and went to the door. Without another word, Raven held it open.
He stepped to her. His knuckles softly grazed her cheek. He kissed her cheek, and then his mouth caressed hers before he stopped himself before taking things a little too far.
“I love you, Raven. Once this nightmare is over, I’m going to make you mine.”
Raven didn’t refute his declaration, nor did she agree.
Those sparkling blue eyes were full of tears. He bestowed each eyelid with more of his love. Raven sniffled, “Leave me.”
“You will always be my Raven,” Liam said, arms wrapped around her. The sunlight flickered off her melancholic face. He gave her the tightest of bear hugs. He wasn’t ready yet, not just yet, to pull away from his most prized possession.
“Run away with me,” Liam said as suspicion took over again. He’d talked himself into them running away, and then just waiting for proof. For seven days, intuition told him that his mother was behind this explosion. But how?
Raven leaned back against the door. As she dragged her bottom lip through her teeth, Liam hastily pulled a velvety box out of his pocket. “Let’s just go and make a life with our baby.”
Raven’s eyes widened as Liam opened it. “I graduate in two days… I can’t leave Grandpa…” Protests died on her lips as he put the ring on her finger. The spiral silver ring fit her finger snugly, all the way from the base to the knuckle.
“I know it’s nothing much.” He watched her gaze at the ring. “Most of my funds are tied up for interest purposes. I’ll make more money by continuing to invest with Shawn’s father. Then I’ll buy you the best ring. We won’t leave with much, but I’ve made money. I’ll make more.”
Liam got back onto his Ducati
with a sound mind. They parted ways, with a plan to meet this evening. Liam felt guilty for the moment. But what was momentary guilt, if he spent his entire life regretting not being there for the one he loved? Besides, they’d leave. Once they got word of the DNA test and of them not being related, Pierre would welcome Liam and Raven into their lives. Yes, it would be safer for her to be family than an enemy of the Delacroix.
CHAPTER 25
Instead of curling her hair or ironing her dress for graduation the following day, Raven pulled on a pair of jeans. She zipped up her black hoodie, ready to meet Liam at the meadow. The very place she daydreamed about Liam while he’d been vanquished to France. Now it was the place where two lovers might meet and run away together.
Raven stuffed clothes in her backpack as tears welled in her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her sleeve, knowing that Annette hated the Lemaître family. After they came back from California, she perceived the difference in Annette’s eyes. Now her granny hated Liam, too. She wrote a note that they were going to run off and get married. After promising to call soon, Raven reluctantly signed it with love. She prayed to God that Granny wouldn’t see her through the same eyes that she saw Charlene after this. Her room echoed with the whisper of an apology, and a desire not to have broken Annette’s heart. And then Raven left.
At the meadow, the moonlight painted a streak of diamonds over peaceful waters. Raven sat on a low-perched tree branch which overlooked the river. Shocks of joy pulsated through her body as she put the backpack behind her head. Propping her legs up on the branch, Raven became mesmerized with fireflies flitting over the river while waiting for Liam.
Growing concerned, she pulled her cell phone out and dialed his number, but he didn’t answer. Warm, heavy eyelids began to droop. She shook her head in an effort to regain some of that energy she’d had about an hour ago. The sounds of nature soothed her, and she fell fast asleep.
~~~
Eyes closed, Raven reached for covers, trying to ward off the chill. She opened her eyes and rubbed the pain in her back from sleeping for hours on the large branches of an old oak tree.
On unsteady legs, Raven swung over the side of the low, thick branch. Where is Liam? She hurried home all alone, through an overcast morning. How could my love forget me?
~~~
Bellwood High School’s gym wasn’t as transformed as it had been for prom. Raven stood on the bleachers with her classmates, scanning the crowd for Liam. This morning, she arrived home and shredded the note to Annette, took a shower, and put on her graduation dress in a daze. I have to give him one last chance to prove himself to me and our baby… She put on a plastic smile.
“He is Jonathan Lemaître Junior after all,” a voice other than her own whispered in her ears. She held in the tears that threatened to escape.
Annette sat toward the front, balloons in hand. There was a camera in the other, clicking away, taking all the pictures that she’d promised to give Grandpa Otis.
Charlene hadn’t called...
This is supposed to be a good day, Raven kept telling herself. She turned to William, who was joking about something. Alligator Boy was so sweet, always endeavoring to get her attention. She noticed him fully for the first time today. Thank God he finally put on some lip balm. His crusty lips weren’t so scary to look at when he talked. And his arms…now a beautiful brown, not that dull gray that they were when he’d scratched the dry scales. Raven laughed at the end of his joke.
“Raven, I…” William began as the joke died on his lips.
There was something in his eyes. Raven’s eyebrow arched. “Yes, Bill?”
“There’s something I wanted to ask you,” he whispered, as the valedictorian droned on.
“Hey, where’s Liam?” Trisha tapped Raven’s arm on the opposite side of her.
“He wasn’t able to make it.” Raven turned back to William. “What was it you wanted to ask?”
“Nothing.” He stared straight ahead. That glint of courage was gone.
Throughout the ceremony, Raven noticed Annette talking to a handsome, dark-skinned man in a fancy suit. As the crowd mingled after the ceremony, Raven found Annette amongst the mass, standing with the same mid-thirties stranger. She hugged her grandma and took the balloons. Annette handed her. Annette took a few pictures and then introduced her to a man, Damien Wright.
~~~
After a celebratory dinner in Brinton with their guest, Damien followed them home. They all sat on the porch for a while, and then Annette excused herself. Raven sat on the swing. He came to sit next to her. Oddly, she didn’t feel uncomfortable with the stranger beside her.
“I’m sure you’re wondering who I am,” he said, breaking the silence.
He’d been so interested in her schooling during dinner and her future plans that she’d never fully learned just who he was. But there was something about Damien that made it easy to talk to him. Raven turned in his direction. She watched as he twirled a dandelion in between his index and thumb fingers. It was a pastime that she adored as a child, watching white bristles separate and float into the warm North Carolina evening sky.
“Well, yes, I am.”
“I spoke with your grandparents a few days ago. They invited me to talk with you about your mother.”
That calming presence that initially attracted her to him had disappeared. Her shoulders automatically tensed. “I don’t want to know anything about her. As far as I’m concerned, if she can’t do one thing that I ask, after an entire lifetime of doing nothing for me, then I don’t care to know about her.” Unable to utter Charlene’s name, Raven sprang to her feet, ready to go into the house.
“Your mother loved you, Raven. In her own way, she did.” Damien set aside the dandelion.
“She may have loved me for a few minutes after giving birth. I’d like to think that all mothers can love an innocent baby, at least for a time. But not her!”
“Please sit. You owe me nothing. You owe Charlene nothing. At least let me talk to you the best way I can, so you’re able to understand her better,” Damien pleaded as she tapped her foot. “Look, I can’t relate. I have a mother that has had my back since day one. I did have a couple of issues as a teenager, struggling for an identity because my father was not around–but I won’t begin to compare that to your life. I just want to do my best to help you.”
“No, thank you. It’s nice and all, you taking on this Good Samaritan role. But if she wants me to learn more about her, let her come to Bellwood to tell me.” Raven opened the screen door. She was about to step through and slam it when he spoke again. She leaned against the doorframe and listened, with arms folded.
“Charlene is in rehab, Raven. She tried to kill herself after you left. She suffers from severe depression. The pills she used only made it worse. Char’s receiving the best help, but I know she would be concerned about you, if she were in her right mind. Char always loved you; I saw it in her eyes when she finally told me she had a daughter.”
Raven took a subtle glance at the man with a melancholy face. He had to be in love with her mother. She’d seen this face before. It was the same face that Annette had for Grandpa. It was the same look that Elise had when Jonathan mentioned being in love with Charlene at the hotel in L.A. The same image mirrored back at her, this morning, after Liam hadn’t come to the meadow last night.
“I’m sorry you’ve made this long trip.” Raven stepped back onto the porch with hands on her hips. “As far as I’m concerned, Charlene is dead to me.” Raven walked into the house, closed the door, and climbed the stairs up to her room.
Peering through the blinds, she watched as Damien left, wondering if the magnolia tree blocked him from seeing her. Poor guy, you fell in love with a woman who doesn’t have a love-bone in her body.
She pulled her chair next to the window, looked out, and thought about Liam, turning the spoon ring around on her finger. For the first time in their life, he’d failed her. Maybe after the DNA test proved that they weren’t
related, he’d be back? Liam just has to come back...
Hearing Annette’s footsteps, Raven turned around to see her enter.
“Damien will only be in town until tomorrow, if you want to talk with him.”
“I don’t.” Raven turned back to look out of the window. The meadow beckoned her from off in the distance. Maybe I’ll go back tonight. Liam might have meant tonight.
“You have to forgive, Raven. You really do.”
Raven wanted to complain. Charlene hadn’t showed her face, but this visit was all about her. The selfish woman probably called the cops right before she took all those pills.
Instead of replying, Raven turned back to the window, deciding that she would go to the meadow tonight as Annette closed the door. I’ll only forgive Liam… She cracked a smile, letting thoughts of his return thaw her anger.
CHAPTER 26
The table fit eight; and on an occasional Thanksgiving or Easter, squeezed in many more. It was the first time Annette cooked a meal since Grandpa Otis was in the hospital. A mini-feast of oxtails, cornbread, black-eyed peas, and cabbage. She was genuinely hurt that Raven wasn’t eating. Sure, she wasn’t that hungry. They both weren’t, but if she put some food on the table, then damn it, they had to eat some of it!
So far, Raven had a small scoop of everything and had yet to take her first bite. Annette had more on her plate–a normal helping, a small mountain–but at least she was pushing the food around every third bite or so.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Annette asked. God, I prayed Raven wouldn’t be mad that I haven’t been giving her much attention lately…
“I’m sorry, ReRe.” Annette put down her fork and looked across the table into Raven’s eyes. “Look, I know I missed your birthday. I made a cake and we have to…we have to celebrate.”
