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 cliche 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 communities, 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?"
Travis stopped to count, shot out a number, and then ran his mouth some more. "Some blond chick was talking from there this morning, but it only got interesting when the reporter interviewed Rayne . . ." He grinned, then spit. "Now that woman can turn some heads. All sweet and innocent looking while she made that plea for a food drive-"
Levi stiffened, certain he'd heard wrong. "A food drive?"
"I think that's what she was saying, although I had a hard time focusing on her words. Girl has some distractingly beautiful-"
"What exactly did she ask for?" Levi tossed his medieval weaponry aside, shutting Travis down before he could take that sentence a breath farther.
His friend's expression remained irritatingly passive. "Like I said, I can't be sure. But I think she was after food donations for the shelter. Aren't you watching the news?"
"No." Not if he could help it, although Ford rarely missed a night.
Levi ripped his hand from his glove and scrubbed at his sweat-slicked face. Hadn't he offered to donate food to the shelter? Hadn't he asked her to let him help?
"Man, you're moody."
"Am not."
"You are. And you've been this way since the night at BlackTail when you left your jackpot on the poker table."
Levi anchored his shoulder on a freshly stacked wall of hay. "Must have been rough-keeping all that cold cash to yourself."
"We split it."
"Sure you did."
Travis laughed and then whistled to the driver to stop. He grabbed two cold Gatorades from the cab of the truck and tossed one up to Levi. "So what, then, you done with us? No more blue-collar games for such a sophisticated entrepreneur like yourself?"
Levi crinkled his brows at the title and hopped off the back of the truck onto the brittle ground. "Sophisticated entrepreneur? Where'd you hear that?"
"I've heard lots lately."
"Like?"
"Like how you've been sniffing around the Shelbys, collecting their business contacts the way we used to pick pockets."
"I'm not sniffing anywhere. And any client I've acquired has been aboveboard." Almost.
"So what's happening between you and Rayne is aboveboard too, then?"
A storm brewed in his chest. "You were baiting me."
"Levi Harding would never leave a jackpot on the table during a high-stakes poker game unless he had a better incentive. I saw you go after her that night, remember? And the next thing I knew, your truck was gone and so was she."
Travis's accusation had substance, he'd give him that much. But out of respect for Rayne, he wouldn't admit to anything more. Not even to his oldest friend. Telling Ford was one thing. But telling Travis? Might as well take out an ad in the town's gossip column. "That's a stretch. Even for you."
Travis lounged against the trailer tire and crossed his ankles, as if the blazing heat made for comfortable conversation. "I've drunk the water, Harding. Tasted the Shelby allure firsthand, and I'm telling you, it's not worth it."
"And there it is. I knew you'd find a way to wiggle her into this conversation. I swear, the drama between you and Gia has more lives than an accident-prone cat. Let it die, Trav."
"Maybe you should take your own advice."
Levi guffawed at the absurdity of this discussion. In no way was his relationship with Rayne even close to the same situation. "Gia's the sheriff's daughter, although I shouldn't have to remind you of that since he was also your arresting officer."
"Oh, and your past mistakes are so much prettier than mine."
"Never said that." He'd been an idiot plenty of times in his youth; he just hadn't been dumb enough to get caught sneaking into the sheriff's house to visit a certain fiery female after curfew. It was shortly after his friend's run-in with the law that Ford had asked Levi to start accounting for his hours spent off the farm, a stipulation he'd created for free housing in addition to his monthly paycheck, a stipulation that managed to keep Levi-and Travis, by default-from many nights of stupid.
"You'll have a bounty on your head the size of Texas if you get caught with Rayne-arrest record or not. Guilty or not. All those scriptures Ford quotes about grace and forgiveness and loving your enemies . . . well, the Shelbys don't subscribe to his same stance on God or faith. Believe me."
"There's nothing going on with me and Rayne." The lie wasn't seamless. His voice was off, his words too sharp, but he didn't need his friend to believe him. He just needed the subject buried.
Travis eyed him for several seconds before he turned his attention back to the field, a smile on his face. "Well, that's good to hear. You know me, I hate saying I told you so."
About as much as he hated a royal flush.
Levi downed the rest of his drink and tossed the empty bottle into the flatbed. "Come on, let's finish this thing up."
Travis waved him off. "Nah, there's not much left to do. I got the rest. You should head home and take a shower. You stink."
"You don't smell any better. Trust me. You sure?"
"I'm sure." Travis laughed. "I asked for a couple hours of help, and you've been out here all day. Get going already."
"If you need something else, call me." Levi stripped his cotton T-shirt over his head, his damp skin instantly relieved.
"Will do. See ya."
As Travis trotted into the field, gesturing for the young driver to roll ahead, Levi pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. On the way back to his truck, he scrolled through his missed messages and notifications. He stopped on a single text delivered just fifteen minutes ago.
His pulse kicked into high gear at the mere sight of her name.
Rayne: You home? I'm free for a bit.
Levi stood in his open doorway and committed the sight of her to memory.
"Hi." Her shy greeting shot a bullet through his earlier resolve and crippled whatever confrontation he'd prepared to have with her about media pleas and food donations.