The Promise Of Rayne - The Promise of Rayne Part 26
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The Promise of Rayne Part 26

There was a look-something like an apology in his eyes, yet no words followed from his mouth. He slipped out of her grasp and didn't turn back.

Gone.

"My office. Now."

Ice licked the length of her spine, crystalizing every organ in her torso.

After a stiff yank on the lapels of his coat, Cal trailed through the chairs and tables, his pace eerily understated for the drama that had just occurred. Rayne stayed close on his heels, catching sight of Delia as they rounded into the lobby. Had Delia witnessed what had happened? Did she understand it?

Cal's footsteps paused when he addressed the cook. "Make sure he leaves the premises immediately."

"Yes, sir." Delia met Rayne's eyes again, pity replacing her earlier bewilderment before she turned away.

Cal tapped a bony finger to his study door, and it creaked open as if on its own. He waited in the doorway for her to pass, the narrow gap a tight fit, even for her small frame. Heart pounding, head swimming, Rayne jetted past him into the familiar den. Clove and tobacco seasoned the air and her eyes drifted to the sealed cigar box on his right.

"Sit," he ordered.

Her adrenaline would never allow her to sit. "I want to stand."

"I didn't ask what you wanted. Sit down."

She perched on the edge of a seat closest to the door, her knees bouncing to the second hand of the clock. The tick, tick, tick of a bomb that had already been thrown. She waited for him to speak, to explain, to fill in the hidden holes of her history, but he said nothing as he lowered his rigid frame into the leather chair.

"Tell me about the will-about what really happened with the farm," she said.

"Are you really going to question me?"

Rayne flinched, but no matter how glacial his stare, she wouldn't be deterred. "What happened with the farm, with Ford Winslow?"

Cal pressed back in his chair and drummed his fingers on his desk in slow repetition. "Do you know what I find so interesting? Why, after all these years, Ford's little charity case would turn up inside my lodge and demand answers . . . for you."

She coached herself to remain calm. He wanted nothing more than to mask the scent of his own sin by a curtain of accusations. She wouldn't let him. She wouldn't leave without answers.

"What did Ford sign? What did he have to stay quiet about?"

Cal angled his head as if to retrieve a piece of information he'd filed away in the back of his mind. "You've always been so naive, Rayne. A trait I've tolerated out of respect for your father. But the problem with naive people"-he leaned forward and steepled his fingers-"is that they trust too easily. Get taken advantage of too often. And worse, they become pawns in a game they were never meant to play."

"Don't be a politician with me. I'm your niece; I deserve to know the truth about my grandfather's will-that does not make me a pawn."

"No?" The weak overhead light and dark-mahogany walls carved shadows above his eye sockets, in the hollows of his cheeks, and in the family divot at the base of his chin. "What do you know about that boy? Please tell me you don't actually believe his hero ploy." Cal inched closer. "The son of a convicted cop killer is hardly a hero."

Blood drained from her head and sloshed in her belly. Cal's mouth twisted into a venomous smile. "Oh, he failed to mention that tidbit of information? It's true. A life sentence for shooting a state trooper in the head during a drug run."

She squeezed her eyes closed and replayed Levi's words again-hearing the pain laced in his voice, the hurt etched into his face.

"Trust me when I say, you're the easiest mark he's ever had," Cal continued, flicking the brass closure on the cigar box open and then lifting the lid. "He doesn't want you. He wants the same as everybody else-connection, power, money, a slice of your inheritance. Sound familiar? It should."

"No." She shook her head. "Stop trying to make this about Levi." She wished she could cut the fear from her voice. "This is about what happened eighteen years ago. What you did."

Cal slammed the lid and her body jerked upright. "What I did eighteen years ago saved this family!"

She gripped the arms of her chair. "From what?"

"From the same spineless betrayal you're exhibiting right now. I saw the way you reached for him, the way you looked at him-I hear the way you're protecting him even now. Do you think that because your daddy is governor you don't have to abide by our rules? That you can behave however you please, sneak around with whomever you want, share a bed with whomever-"

"How dare you assume-"

"You live as if consequence doesn't exist!"

She pushed forward. "No, I live as if consequence is the only thing that exists! Every decision I make is weighed and measured against my last name." A sob caught in her throat. "You've known me my entire life. You gave me my first job, wrote my letter of recommendation to Gonzaga University. You groomed me to be your successor and yet you still won't trust me enough to tell me the truth about our family."

"You haven't earned my trust. I told you to stay away from that farm. You ignored my warning. Twice." He tipped his head to the side, his chest heaving in uneven pumps. "It's time you figured out how to live without the Shelby safety net. You have two hours to vacate my property."

Her grip on the chair slackened.

"You're fired."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

Icy water lapped over her naked toes, numbing her feet the way she wished to numb her heart. A vastly different reality from the last time she had stood here. With Levi. Possibility had seemed as deep as the attraction they'd felt. As the kisses they'd shared. As the promises they'd spoken.

The sun's dying light, suspended in a smoke cloud, stretched across the water, the hues dull and lifeless like the vegetation all around her. Limp weeds dragged behind the pull of a slow-moving current, while brittle pine needles spiraled to the ground below. No birds chirped nearby, and the only scents tainting the air now were of soot and decay and the ashes of dreams set aflame.

The most sought-after view in Shelby Falls had become nothing more than a grainy blur, much like the last three hours of her life.

Cradling a rock in her palm, she peered into the haze across the narrow shoreline. How many times had she held a stone in her hand just like this one-hoping her practice paid off, hoping her efforts would be seen, hoping her best would be enough.

Hoping she would be enough.

She plopped the dead weight into the water and watched it sink to the bottom.

How foolish she'd been to hope.

"There you are." Gia meandered across the rocky terrain. "I was beginning to think you'd sent me on some kind of smoky goose chase." She coughed in the crook of her elbow. "I was finishing up a glaze when I got your text and . . ." Gia's words died out. "Rayne, what's going on?"

"What do you know about Granddaddy's will?" The question seemed as haunted as her voice.

"His will? Why? What's this about? And where are your shoes? That water has to be freezing."

She'd abandoned her shoes and overcoat somewhere along the trail, not bothering to note where. She didn't budge. All feeling below her ankles had died before she'd even had time to care about the pain. "Did Aunt Nina ever mention how the land was divided or how the inheritance was split?"

"I don't think so, although I make it a point not to dwell on anything prior to nineteen ninety-nine. Messes with my creativity. Again, why is this important?"

"Cal lied."

"Cal makes a living off his lies. He works for your father, remember?"

"This is different. This isn't about politics; it's about us. Our family. Something happened eighteen years ago. Something big."

Gia twisted her hips, her face a mask of confusion. "Like what?"

Rayne wished she knew. "Levi came to the lodge tonight."

"Like . . . inside the lodge? You told me your fling was over." Gia's irritation sparked through the humid air.

"He confronted Cal, Gia. He threatened to expose him in front of the entire shelter if Cal didn't admit to lying about the will-about how Ford Winslow really acquired the farm."

For a girl who never missed an opportunity for a snarky comeback, Gia's silence said she didn't know what to make of it either.

"I've never seen Cal look so"-a shiver feathered over Rayne's skin-"terrifying."

"I don't understand what you're telling me."

How could she possibly help her cousin understand what she couldn't even put into words? "I don't have the answers, Gia. I just know what I saw-what I heard."

Unbidden, the memory of Levi's apology whispered from the hollows of her heart. I'm sorry, Rayne, but this is the only way. And for the thousandth time since packing up her cabin, she pushed his voice away.

Pushed him away.

The feelings inside her were too strong-too confusing-too tangled for her to sort.

"Why wait-I mean, if Levi knew a secret about our family, why wouldn't he tell you sooner?"

Rayne had asked herself that same question. Over and over again. "I don't know. At first I worried he showed up to expose us, to hurt me for hurting him." Her throat tightened around her impending vulnerability. "But now I wonder if he was trying to warn me." Rayne focused on the obscured mountain peaks and exhaled. "Do you remember him, Gia?"

"Who?"

"Ford."

Gia's top lip curled. "Not much, and that's how I prefer it."

"I saw him. The night I ended things with Levi. I saw Ford, talked to him."

Her mind drifted back to that night, to Ford's tranquil demeanor, to the steady cadence of his voice, to the question that haunted her for days. What had she asked him in the grocery store?

"I may not remember much about him, but I definitely remember the lectures from my parents after the funeral," Gia admitted. "To never wander over to the farm and to stay away from Ford and his employees."

Rayne remembered the same, only there was something more, something scratching at the corner of her mind, a memory she couldn't quite retrieve, a dog-eared page too faded to decode.

They fell into a pensive quiet, each lost to some piece of the past.

"Handcuffs," Gia said absently.

Rayne turned. "Handcuffs?"

"Yeah, I remember my dad used them the day of Grandpa's funeral. I asked him about it when he tucked me into bed that night and he told me not to worry, to go to sleep, but I snuck onto the stairs and overheard my parents recounting the story. My dad cuffed Ford. For trespassing."

"Trespassing?" Her disbelief tangled with surprise.

"Don't look so shocked, Pollyanna. You know what kind of person he is-"

"No, I'm not sure I do." The thought slipped out of her mouth unfiltered.

"Listen, Rayne, I know this may be hard for you to believe, but scorned lovers do a lot of crazy, stupid things after they've been rejected. You're giving Levi too much credit. Maybe you're overthinking this whole thing."

But Levi's face hadn't been crazed or wild. He'd been intent, focused, determined . . . so why had he put her at risk? Why had he gone to her uncle? Why, if he loved her, hadn't he told her the secret? Unless Gia was right and there was no secret. "Maybe so."

"Cal's a power-hungry rat for sure, but even he has his limits. If there were some big discrepancy in Granddaddy's will, he wouldn't have been able to hide it this long. Not in this town. Whatever happened tonight between Levi and Cal isn't enough to lose sleep over."

The irony of Gia's statement penetrated the last of her emotional armor. "I lost my job."

Gia's curls whipped behind her back. "What?"

"Cal fired me. After Levi left, I questioned him too, begged him to tell me the truth. And he fired me."

The shock on Gia's face reflected the shock protecting Rayne's mind from processing the implications of her statement. Only now that it was out, now that she'd spoken the words with her own mouth and heard them with her own ears, a suffocating panic tore at her chest from the inside.

She'd lost the lodge.

Her cousin's olive complexion paled under the strain of silence. "Oh, Rayne. What have you done?"

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

Levi pressed his free hand to his ear to block the sound blaring from Ford's living room. His phone had been permanently affixed to his head since midmorning. "Tom, listen, I can assure you that Second Harvest's numbers look great for next year. Our vendors are producing double their-"

"I'm sorry, kid. It's just business."

But Levi had the distinct feeling that it wasn't. It wasn't just business that had caused nearly every one of his handpicked investors to pull out of the expansion launch in the last thirty-six hours. It was personal. Very, very personal.

He slammed his phone onto the desktop and vented with a few choice words.

The volume on Ford's television ratcheted higher. Tina Tucker's mousy voice seeped through the walls. More fire updates. More recruits coming. More aid en route.

Levi stalked down the hallway to deliver some news of his own. "We're in trouble."

Ford didn't shift his eyes from the talking head on screen. "Whole state's in trouble, son."