The Promise Of Rayne - The Promise of Rayne Part 32
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The Promise of Rayne Part 32

She pillowed her head onto her elbow. "You're worried."

"Just thinking."

"Thinking alone can be dangerous."

"I'm not alone."

"No." She laced her fingers through his. "You're not."

Someone coughed near the bleachers, and he allowed his next words to simmer a few extra seconds. "I keep thinking of all the things I left unfinished. The paperwork I didn't sign on my desk. The warehouse I didn't lock up. The e-mails I haven't returned." About the delay of Second Harvest's expansion plans.

"That's not all you're worried about."

Her ability to understand him was only one of the many reasons he'd fallen so hard for her. "No, it's not." But fretting over investors when the farm could be nothing more than two hundred acres of charred ground seemed petty by comparison. His gut roiled at the thought, calming only when he caught a glimpse of Rayne's searching expression.

Her presence bolstered a feeling of quiet strength inside of him, a reminder of a prayer he'd only just now realized had been answered.

In all the chaos, God had given him the gift of perspective. There was no setback that could destroy him. Not now. Not when everyone who mattered to him was safe.

Rayne flipped Levi's hand over and rubbed at the calluses on the inside of his palm. "What's your favorite memory of the farm?"

He stared at her, willing himself to follow her down that sentimental path. "I don't know if I can choose a favorite."

"Then just tell me about a moment that makes you smile anytime you think of it."

"Does you showing up unannounced in a golf cart count? 'Cause that makes me smile."

"No, tell me something I don't know about."

He pulled a memory up through the haze of unfinished business. "So, it was my second apple harvest at the farm. I was nineteen."

"Yeah?" She leaned closer, her cot springs squeaking.

"I'd talked Ford into hiring Travis for seasonal help, and we were supposed to fill the barrels for the fall festival. Ford had sent the other pickers home, and since Travis and I were the lowest men on the totem pole, and didn't have access to the farm equipment, we were chosen to sort the rest by hand." A loose grin twitched his lips. "Ford has this process when it comes to apple selection-it's tedious and time consuming, looking at every angle of an apple before adding it to the good barrel or tossing it into the reject box. He swore by the method; his reputation was staked on it. But after Ford turned in for the night, we decided if we couldn't speed up the stupid process, we could at least find a way to enjoy it a little more."

She bit her lip. "Uh-oh."

"Yeah. Travis paid a friend to bring us a few cases of beer."

The foreboding look on Rayne's face begged to be kissed, and he answered the silent request before continuing. "To be honest, I don't even know how we finished sorting that night, much less how we moved the good barrels into the delivery truck. We lost more than a few apples in the process."

She grimaced. "What happened?"

"Ford was waiting for us outside the barn the next morning, along with the trash can we'd carelessly discarded all our empty beer bottles into."

Her eyes rounded. "Was he furious?"

"We were sure he'd fire us. I'd never seen Travis so nervous, and I'm sure he'd say the same thing about me. We both had fathers who were deadbeats on their best day and violent drunks on their worst. We'd heard every possible four-letter-word combination to describe our level of worthlessness. So I knew whatever happened, Ford couldn't possibly say anything we hadn't already heard a thousand times."

The corners of her eyes and mouth turned down and he kissed her slender fingers.

"But Ford didn't fire us, and he definitely didn't give us the lecture we deserved."

"Then what did he do?"

"He told us he was taking us out for burgers."

"What?"

"That's what we said too, but we went along with it. After he dragged that trash can back to the side of the warehouse, he drove us to that old diner on Seventh. I think we held our breath the entire way there." He stroked the soft skin at the back of her hand. "He ordered for us and then asked both of us a question I've never forgotten: 'What kind of man do you want to become?'"

"How did you answer?"

"I didn't at first. All I could think about was who I didn't want to become-a man like my father. But Ford said, 'Good character isn't produced overnight; it's grown over many seasons. In the same way you sort the good apples from the bad, the marks of poor characters are just as easy to detect.'"

"Wow."

"Yeah, he loves to say, 'Character is built on every decision we make, especially those we make in secret.' The day Ford took me in was a new beginning, but the day he gave me a second chance when I clearly didn't deserve one-" He fought against the tightening in his throat. "That day changed the trajectory of my life. I could never hope to be a better man if I didn't make the choices of a better man."

"Amazing," she said on a breath.

"It's where I got the name Second Harvest."

"That's an incredible story." She rolled her lips together. "I still can't believe I'm related to him."

"I can." A higher compliment didn't exist.

Her sudden stillness sharpened his senses.

"I'm so grateful you've had him in your life, Levi." Tears compromised her speech. "Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be forever grateful for what my grandfather's farm gave to you both-a family, the way family was meant to be."

He gripped the bottom of her cot and closed the two-inch gap between them. With a hand to the back of her neck, he spoke the words over her lips. "Whatever tomorrow brings, know that I love you, and I have no intention to stop."

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.

The 9.2-mile drive had never felt longer.

Levi adjusted the controls on his dash, cutting the flow of outside air and saving their throats from the fumes of burning foliage. Careful to navigate around the orange-and-white road blockades, he tailed Ford to the fire marshal's designated meeting location.

Rayne stared out the passenger-side window, her fingers tangled into a worried knot on her lap.

"Hey." He reached across the console and squeezed her knee. "Whatever happens, okay?"

The tense smile that touched her lips mirrored his own, yet even still, she covered his hand and repeated the words they'd spoken nearly every hour since dawn. "Whatever happens."

Ford's turn signal flashed through the obtrusive haze. Like a desert mirage, the marshal's truck appeared in the gravel turnout a quarter mile out from the Shelby-Winslow property line. The smoke had settled below the treetops, hanging low enough to obscure the nature around them, and too dense to make out any structure beyond where they stood to meet.

Rayne's white-knuckled grip tightened on the door handle as a shiny black Mercedes came into focus on their left.

"Cal's here," she announced.

"I figured he'd demand a private consultation with the marshal." The words were sandpaper to his teeth. As much as he needed an update on the farm, the sudden desire to flip a U-turn pressed against his protective instincts. He forced the gearshift into park and regarded his passenger. "What do you want to do, Rayne?"

"What we came here to do." She popped open her door, not an ounce of hesitancy in her voice.

Once outside the truck, she slipped her hand into his and together they crunched across the loose terrain. Ford stood near the marshal while Cal paced in a fog patch nearby, his back to them all, a phone pressed to his ear. Levi searched for signs of the two other property holders in the area but found none.

"Where are the others?" Rayne asked.

His shrug was uncomfortably stiff. "Not sure."

"Levi." Ford's subtle gesture to approach made his gut bottom out. What did he know?

"Thank you for meeting with us today, Marshal Harris," Levi said as he shook the weathered hand of the county fire marshal and introduced Rayne, though she hardly needed an introduction. Marshal Harris seemed plenty well acquainted with the Shelby family. The man flicked an annoyed glare toward Cal's back and then glanced at his watch for what was apparently not the first time.

"Mr. Shelby," Marshal Harris boomed. "We need to get started here."

Rayne gripped Levi's hand as if to obtain strength from their unity. He squeezed back, wishing they could communicate through Morse code.

Cal swiveled on his heels and his shaded scowl slipped the instant he spied his niece-or rather, the instant he spied his niece's hand clutched in Levi's. Without a word, Cal plucked the phone away from his ear, tapped the screen, and stuffed the device inside the breast pocket of his suit coat.

"What's the report, Harris?" Cal demanded with no further acknowledgment of their existence.

No acknowledgment of his brother's existence.

"Shouldn't we wait for the Gourleys and the Kellers?" The sweet sound of Rayne's voice at his side tempered Levi's heightened irritability.

Marshal Harris set his gaze on Rayne. "We did everything we could, but the winds were too high. We weren't able to regain control on that side of the river until it was too late."

"And whose call was it to pull the ground crews out last night, Harris?" Cal's finger slashed through the polluted air like an aimless dagger. "If I lost so much as a shingle on my lodge, you can bet I'll be heading up a full investigation."

"It was my call." Harris's words issued a challenge.

Levi glanced at Ford before taking the reins. "Have you taken inventory of all the properties on this side of the river?"

The tension in the man's face held strong for another three seconds before he managed to shift his attention to Levi. "Yes. I have."

Whether Rayne's grip tightened in his or his in hers, he couldn't be sure. Whatever the case, they were in this. Together. Whatever happens.

Harris faced them, his gaze ticking from face to face like the second hand of a wall clock. "I called you here to personally commend and compliment the man responsible for digging the fire line along the old logging road. It not only preserved both properties on this side of the river, but it reinforced our efforts, which conserved resources and manpower. The water-suppression system he engineered to pump water into the fire line and wet the vegetation was better than anything I could have built myself. Using the river was ingenious." His revolution halted on Ford.

And though no words were exchanged, the conversation inside Levi's head was as clear as the river that belted Ramsey Highway.

All those extra trips off property with the tractor and backhoe.

All those random sketches and blueprint equations on Ford's desk.

All those bags of pipeline and irrigation materials in the warehouse.

All of it finally made sense.

Ford had been digging a fire line.

Every possible explanation for what Marshal Harris described contradicted the world Rayne had grown up in for the last eighteen years. A world where neighbors passed without acknowledgment of one another. A world where friendly mailbox meetings and cordial waves were obsolete. A world where there'd been no knocks at the door to borrow sugar, no front porch conversations, no contact whatsoever.

And yet . . .

"Please," she said, looking from the marshal to Ford, her voice hoarse and rough. "Explain."

The fireman thumped Ford's shoulder. "What I'm saying, Miss Shelby, is that that freshly dug fire line behind your property"-he cut his gaze to her uncle-"is the only reason why Shelby Lodge is still standing."

Less than twenty-four hours ago, she'd labeled Ford Winslow an enemy; now she labeled him a hero.

The concept of mercy had eluded her since childhood. Like a slippery substance she couldn't quite grasp, she'd struggled to accept why an all-knowing God would sacrifice himself for the souls of faulty people. People who strayed, people who doubted, people who didn't deserve a second chance.

People just like her.

The Shelbys had taken everything from Ford-a family that should have loved him, supported him, and cherished him. Instead, he'd been rejected, threatened, and disowned. And despite what her family deserved, Ford hadn't left their lodge to burn.

He'd been the one to save it.

For the first time in her life, the mystery of mercy had been unveiled.

She tasted the salt of her tears as she lifted her gaze to Cal, hoping this act of unmerited compassion would thaw the ice around his heart. Unfortunately, it wasn't gratitude she saw reflected in his eyes.

"I want to see it for myself." Her uncle's concrete tone scraped against her insides.

The marshal's hand slipped from Ford's shoulder. "See what for yourself, Mr. Shelby?"

"The lodge!" Cal pounded a fist to his chest. "My lodge!"

"The wind may have calmed, but it will be at least another twelve hours before we can safely reopen Ramsey Highway, unless, of course, God decides to give us some rain-"

"If you want to send the sheriff to arrest me, then send him, and while you're at it, remind him that he owes me a hundred bucks for dinner last night."

The stare down lasted only a few seconds, the marshal's face darkening by three shades. "I'll allow you thirty minutes but not a second more. I'll be waiting at the end of your driveway to escort you back to the blockade. Don't test me."

Her uncle bolted to his black sedan without a backward glance.

And something like static buzzed inside Rayne's chest, an unsettled tension that couldn't be ignored.

"I have to talk to him," she said, her words two steps ahead of her sanity.