The Promise Of Rayne - The Promise of Rayne Part 16
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The Promise of Rayne Part 16

They stood just a few feet out from the shore, the sound of the Falls around the bend beckoning them farther, but the slow-moving current seemed to stall their momentum, as if neither of them could keep going until they'd dealt with what they'd left behind.

Levi retrieved a flat stone near his boot, popped it into his palm, and then offered it to Rayne. The same way he'd done nine years ago. "Ladies first."

She took the chalky stone without argument, flexing her wrist side to side before twisting her hips. Her short flick and release skipped the stone three times on the water's surface.

"Not too shabby, Shelby."

"I'm pretty rusty. I haven't done this for . . . a while."

Levi gave her a sideways glance and picked up another stone for himself. "Three's better than a lot of people can do. What's your magic number?"

"Nine. But that was years ago." Rayne bent at the knees and scooped up a handful of stones, sorting them the way he picked through a handful of jelly beans. Tossing out the greens and whites and keeping the blacks, reds, and oranges.

Levi cocked his shoulder back and chucked the stone into the river. Seven skips.

"Whoa! You're really good!"

"I've had lots of practice."

"Guess I should have asked about your magic number?"

"Seventeen. Just once."

Her eyes widened. "Seventeen? And was anybody besides God a witness to such a phenomenon?"

Levi selected a rock from the pile in her hand. "Not a soul." The way he'd once preferred it. Up until recently anyway.

When they'd depleted her collection of stones, Rayne trailed to the river's edge. Balancing on her haunches, she dipped her arm into the water and washed the ashy streak marks away. Even as he watched her, he knew committing the sight to memory wouldn't be enough. Rayne's allure encompassed more than the beautiful line of her body or the effortless way she moved. Her appeal wasn't limited to the physical. There was so much more-the way she spoke, the way she listened, the way she cared for others without thought or complaint. In a matter of weeks, she'd recaptured his full attention and reclaimed something he'd left at the river nearly a decade ago. Hope.

She stretched her neck side to side and stood upright, tiny droplets of water dripping from the ends of her fingertips. As she moved toward him, a ribbon of hair slipped from behind her ear.

"I came back." The words escaped him without permission and her steps paused.

"I came back here. Every night. For weeks. Hoping you'd be here, like you promised you would."

She said nothing with her mouth, but her eyes couldn't be silenced.

"At first, I convinced myself I'd messed up, like maybe my own jacked-up view of reality had misinterpreted our interaction, made it into something more than it was. But then later, after I'd shed my new-kid status and learned the ways of this town, I had no choice but to accept the truth." He stepped toward her. "The reason you didn't show up wasn't because of who I was, it was because of who I worked for. Where I lived."

Her neck strained on a swallow.

"There's just one thing, though . . ." He was an arm's reach away.

"What?" A wavering question that sounded more uncertain than she looked.

"While you were a stranger to me that night-a nameless girl in a brand-new town-I couldn't have been a stranger to you." The Shelbys made it their business to know the happenings in their town, especially the happenings of their neighbor to the west. "You had to have known who I was that night, Rayne. And yet, you followed me anyway."

"Yes, I knew." Her eyes turned molten, a blaze of liquid fire that heated him through. "I just wanted to believe it didn't matter."

"It doesn't have to matter." He reached for her waist and tugged her against him. A sweet sigh grazed his lips and triggered the end of his patience.

Nine years had been long enough.

He captured her mouth in his.

Their kiss was fueled by instinct and impulse. By ragged breaths and erratic heartbeats. By nine years of forbidden curiosity and guarded freedom.

Desire urged him closer. His hands roved her back and inched up her spine to brace her head. Raven-colored hair spilled through his open fingers, and all at once, the tension in her neck and shoulders released. She was either giving in or giving up. He wasn't sure which, but he could taste the abandon in her kiss.

She explored the ridges of his back and then the planes of his chest as his lips dipped from her mouth to the base of her ear to her throat.

On the end of a soft whimper she tipped her chin back. "This is not what friends do."

"I know," he said between kisses. "But just so we're clear, friends was your idea, not mine."

"I know," she whispered. "But we need to-"

He kissed the words away, certain more words could wait another few minutes.

Unfortunately, Rayne wasn't as certain.

She pushed against his chest and he pulled back just enough to see her pink cheeks and wild hair-the exact opposite of what he needed to cool off.

And then he saw the worry on her face.

"We'll never see each other," she said.

"We're seeing each other now, aren't we?"

Amazingly, his astute logic didn't convince her.

"You know this can't work, Levi."

He bracketed her face between his palms. "And you know this thing between us is something. It's been something since the first time we met."

"Yes. I know."

At the sound of her throaty reply, he cupped a hand behind her neck and kissed her soundly, but again, she stopped him.

Rayne stepped back, her expression pained and panicked. "This is too risky."

"For who?"

"You. Me. Both of us."

"I'm not afraid of your family, Rayne."

Her eyes sharpened on his. "You should be."

Roughly, he swiped a hand down his face. His opinion wouldn't change, but he could accommodate hers. "Then we'll be careful."

"Because that worked out so well for Romeo and Juliet."

"I promise not to drink any secret potions if you don't." But the levity in Levi's tone seemed to go unheard as she rolled a piece of driftwood under her boot before kicking it into the current.

"You think I'm being a coward, but I'm not. I'm being realistic."

"No." He shook his head. "I think you've lived under the control of your family for so long you can't comprehend what freedom feels like."

She averted her gaze to the water, her voice flat and inflexible. "And what do you think Ford will say when you tell him you're sneaking around with a Shelby?"

The pang that struck his chest was not from guilt but from every blatant mistruth she must have been spoon-fed since childhood. He'd been the kid tossed around like yesterday's trash, group home to group home, and yet he felt a sympathy for Rayne he couldn't quantify in words. "Ford's not my warden."

"But he is your boss and-"

"And he doesn't dictate who I care about."

As Levi's words punched through the air, Rayne's expression morphed into bewilderment.

"It didn't take me three days to remember to call you, Rayne. It took me three days to figure out if I could do this-if I could be near you and not want to be with you."

"Levi-"

"The answer is no. I can't." He closed the distance between them again. "I want to understand you-this woman who shoots in high heels and dreams about community service projects. I want a chance to see where this goes, to explore what this is between us before you shut it down out of fear."

She faced the water, her shoulder brushing against his bicep. "I don't know how to be with you and be a Shelby."

"I'm not asking you to make that choice."

"Then what are you asking?" The fragility in her voice twisted his gut.

"For you to try, even if it means breaking some rules."

They stood in silence, yet just like the murmur of the water's current, the song of the finches overhead, and the whirl of wind through brittle pine needles, he guessed her mind was far from quiet.

And then, like an unspoken promise, he felt the whisper of her fingers sweep across the back of his hand.

"Okay," she said. "We can try."

He lifted their joined hands and kissed her soft skin. "We'll be careful."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Being careful, it turned out, looked a lot like an extended version of summer camp. Their schedule was organized into risk-free zones, hours that minimized discovery-Levi slipping into the lodge before dawn, Rayne trekking to the farm after her shift. All in all, sneaking around had proved easier than she'd initially thought, especially since Ford left the premises to work on the land every morning around seven and didn't return until late afternoon, a schedule Levi claimed Ford hadn't changed since he'd come to the farm. And even though Cal returned to the lodge on weekends, his attention had been split between Celeste and the campaign for weeks.

For once, being the unnoticed Shelby had its perks.

She lifted her fist to knock on Levi's door and was met with a familiar set of hands gripping her waist. Levi spun her around, dug his fingers into the curve of her hips, and pressed her back firmly against the wall.

His welcome was as intense as his kiss.

He released her and cocked a wicked grin.

"Um . . . hello to you too," she rasped through a smile.

"Just trying to make up for lost time."

Reeling from the fire still ablaze on her lips, she said, "Um, you were the one who canceled on me this morning, remember?"

"Yes, I do." He raked a hand through shower-damp hair. "One of my packers called in sick late last night, and all three of my drivers are out on deliveries-which means, I still have fifty-two boxes to fill by eleven."

"So that kiss was a bribe?"

Levi wrapped an arm around her waist. "Or an early payment. Depends on how you see the glass."

"Half full, then." She laughed. "Remind me to fill out a W-4 later."

He hooked his hand through hers and led her through his kitchen to the back door.

"Wait." She pulled back. "You want me to help pack boxes in the warehouse?"

"In case you haven't noticed, my living room can barely fit the two of us, much less dozens of boxes. It's fine, Rayne. Nobody's here."

"But what if-"

"I wouldn't ask you to help if there were a risk to you." Something hard flashed in his eyes as he said the words. "You should know me better than that by now."

He was right, she should know him better than that by now. They'd shared hours upon hours of predawn conversation, yet the nagging fear of being caught, of losing what they had begun, of risking something too great to name, chipped away at her conscience every time they were together. The feeling had lessened a bit over the last few weeks, dulled only by her ever-present adrenaline. But any sudden change of plan, any uncharted territory, presented them both with a new threat level.

She followed him out the door, across the gravel divide between buildings, and into the warehouse. This wasn't like the barn she'd been in the night they'd shot Apple Adam with the BB gun. No, this place was the sanctuary for Levi's dream.

The smell of freshly harvested vegetables, herbs, and fruit tinged the air, and a giant rectangular sign was draped from the rafters at the back of the open room: "Second Harvest Distribution Center."

He pointed to the opposite wall. "We open those doors during the U-pick harvest in early September, and also for the farmers' market twice a month, and sometimes for the trucks, depending on the load."

His footsteps pattered through the warehouse and echoed back the beat of her palpitating heart.

Fragments of her grandfather's stories shoved into the cramped space of her overactive mind. Tales of a time when her family had owned this very property.

As the original Shelby homestead had expanded in acreage and increased in value, the land had remained under Shelby possession, passed down through multiple generations, sometimes through inheritance and at other times by share buying and community development. Her grandfather had purchased the estate and farmlands outright more than fifty years ago. During his last term as governor, he'd remodeled the lodge, planning to retire with her grandma Betty in Shelby Falls and live out the rest of his life by serving the people he loved most.

Of course, when he died eighteen years ago, Shelby Farm hadn't looked like this at all. There were only a few rows of apple trees back then, not a hundred-acre orchard. There was no Christmas-tree farm or pumpkin patch. No gift shop or holiday market tent. No big red barn bursting at the seams with farm equipment and harvest festival entertainment. And certainly no distribution warehouse.