by Delia Latham
He didn’t relieve her of that discomfort immediately. Instead, those steel-gray eyes narrowed to slits and he studied her, obviously curious. “You don’t sound overly excited about it.”
She pasted on a smile she hoped came across as genuine. Dec had proven far more observant than she’d expected, pinning her down with a question that had been teasing at her conscience for some time. “It’s been a long haul, getting that diploma and securing a position in the state forensics department. I’ll be starting as an apprentice, but even that…well, yeah, of course I’m very pleased.”
Dec shoved his food basket to the side and pulled a drink through his straw without once taking his gaze off her face. Was he seeing clear through to her soul?
“Right.” He finally said something, in a dry voice that dripped disbelief.
“I am!” Why did she feel the need to insist so vehemently?
“If you say so.” He still studied her far too closely for comfort. “Your parents must be proud.”
“You could say that.” She glanced away and clasped her lip between her teeth so he wouldn’t see the tremble. When she thought she could speak without revealing anything he didn’t need to know, she smiled. “Watching me reach this point in my life has been their single-minded goal since…well, since the day I was born, I think.”
Dec frowned. “Their goal? That’s an odd way of putting it. What about you, Raine?”
She shrugged. “It makes them happy, so yes—my goal too, of course.”
“Wait a minute. It makes them happy? I don’t get—”
Raine jumped up and stacked both of their empty food baskets onto the tray Dec had left sitting on the edge of the table, then quickly raked their messy napkins on top. “I’ll just take care of these things.” She hurried off before he could pose another question she didn’t want to answer.
As Raine dumped soiled napkins and plastic utensils into the garbage container, and then added their food-dotted tray to a growing stack of them, she fought the urge to cry, perturbed by her own sensitivity.
Why did Dec’s questions rankle so badly?
She was excited about starting her new career in a couple of months. Wasn’t she? She huffed out a breath, straightened her shoulders, and fixed a smile on her face. Of course she was. She’d worked too hard and too long for that degree to be second-guessing herself now. Graduation jitters, that’s all that was going on. And it was perfectly normal to be a little apprehensive about a new job of any kind, especially one with as much responsibility as this one entailed.
Dec’s gray gaze as she approached the table started a mini volcano brewing in her insides. She ignored it.
“Ready to go?” He stood, placed a hand to the small of her back, and escorted her out of the restaurant. As he opened the car door for her, he grinned, clearly having decided to abandon a subject she was reluctant to discuss.
“Now for dessert. I can tell you now…you’re about to experience the best cookies you have ever—or will ever—taste.”
Raine stifled a groan. Could she swallow another bite?
But Dec looked like a little boy, with that wide grin and eager expression. The man was proud of his town, and the special treasures and talents it held.
She gave him a saucy grin. “Bring it on, woodcarver! I never met a cookie I didn’t like.”
****
A week later, and Raine still existed in a state of perpetual infatuation with her surroundings.
Fresh, brisk sea air filled her lungs as she jogged alongside the road. Surely this beautiful coastline was one of God’s special gifts to the human race. The deep peace she had experienced here surpassed any she had known before, and already she had fallen in love with Cambria. If she didn’t have a career waiting back in Pasadena, she could easily imagine herself never leaving.
But she did have a career—and two increasingly miffed parents—awaiting her return to the city. A replay of her frustrating phone conversation with her mother just before she set out pounded her conscience with a force equal to that of her feet against the paved bike path.
She’d sat on the balcony off her kitchen, her hands wrapped around a large mug of coffee, for close to an hour while she geared herself up for the call. The sun rose over the pines as she softly prayed for strength. Finally, she picked up her cell phone, almost hoping the call would go to voice mail.
Her mother answered on the first ring.
“Raine?” Excitement and barely restrained hope tinged the cultured voice. “Are you on your way home?”
Her jaw dropped. What? She’d barely arrived at Paradise Pines. Raine drew a deep, not-so-calming breath. “Mother, you know I plan to be away for several months.”
“Yes, but…” A disappointed sigh all but shook the phone. “I thought perhaps you’d come to your senses and you were headed back here, where you belong.”
Raine bit her tongue and counted to ten. “Not likely to happen. I’m loving this place. Have you ever been to Cambria?”
“Yes, your father and I visited once, years ago. Just overnight. We attended a seminar on achieving success in one’s chosen occupation. It was held at a lodge of some sort—quite comfortable, really—something to do with pines, I think, or maybe willows…well, some kind of tree. I don’t really remember.”
“Probably Cambria Oaks.” Raine hoped her voice held no evidence of the edge her mother’s words sent through her spirit. “What a beautiful place to have a seminar. I can’t believe the two of you left so quickly.”
“Well, the seminar was over.” Puzzlement. Her mother honestly didn’t understand why they might have been stayed longer. “Why would anyone want to hang around an unfamiliar place, having absolutely nothing of importance to attend to? You know we don’t waste a lot of time on sightseeing or, well, any other kind of touristy pastimes. We’ve always tried to stay busy with productive activities.”
The thinly veiled hint at Raine’s wasting of valuable time by running off to Cambria for a vacation set her teeth on edge. Why couldn’t her parents give it a rest, just for now? She looked forward to her new job—when she didn’t think about it too much—but did she really have to sleep, breathe, and eat it every moment of every day?
“That’s too bad. You and Father should have taken time to enjoy this beautiful place. I’ve fallen in love with it.”
A low, controlled chuckle—restrained to carefully display only the most ladylike of vocal resonance—spilled into her ear over the phone. “Don’t be silly, darling. One doesn’t ‘fall in love’ with a location. A location is simply…well, a place. That’s all. One is every bit as good as another, as long as lucrative professions are available.” She drew a sharp breath that came just shy of hissing through the line. Wynn Presley would never be accused of such crass behavior as a hiss of any kind. “I don’t understand why you’ve suddenly become so giddy, darling. It’s quite disappointing.”
Raine bit her lip and swallowed the tears that fought to come. “Disappointing you and Father was not what I set out to do.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Based on the familiar tone of voice, Raine could almost see the expressive roll of her mother’s stunning green eyes—eyes very much like her own, although Raine thought her mother’s far prettier. “Why don’t you just admit this was a bad idea and get yourself back home, Spring Raine? There are plenty of worthwhile things we could be doing to help prepare you for your job.”
Oh no. Mother had used both names—straight from the flower-child past she shared with Raine’s father. Nothing gave away the couple’s wilder days more clearly than the monikers they’d pinned on their daughters—Spring Raine and Summer Skye.
And nothing indicated their mother’s displeasure with such force as the rare occasions on which she made use of both first and middle names.
“Mother…please, don’t. I am well prepared to step into my career with confidence. What I need right now is some time to relax and forget I even have a job waiting. I’ve spent the last sixteen years th
inking only about my future, and forging a path to make it happen. Now I need a break. Why can’t you understand that?”
“Well! If you’re going to be rude and disrespectful, please don’t bother calling, Raine. Call again when you’re feeling more like yourself.”
She hung up, and Raine followed suit, blinking back tears she had no intention of shedding. One trip. One break from the constant drive toward career perfection. That’s all she wanted…and the only thing she’d ever asked. Feeling guilty about it was not a road she intended to take.
She set off on her jog, hoping to clear the cobwebs of disappointment and dissension from her head. Having abandoned the trail in the woods as a running route, despite her pleasant outing with Dec, she headed out along the main road between Cambria and the turnoff to Paradise Pines. If the natural beauty along this road couldn’t clear her mind and lighten her heart, nothing could.
To her consternation, she seemed unable to stop thinking about her outing with Dec. The man had proven himself a perfect gentleman, and a fun companion—to say nothing of being all too easy on the eyes. Raine made up her mind to take a firm rein on her emotions where he was concerned. Spending a little time with him was one thing. A vacation would become overly long without some sort of companionship. But she couldn’t allow Dec’s magnetic personality to draw her any further than that.
She rounded a bend in the road and slowed, her gaze fixed on the side of the road just ahead.
A backpack rested on the ground, and someone leaned back against it, arms crossed over a thin chest.
Raine gnawed her lip, wondering if she should reverse direction. On the other hand, she couldn’t decipher gender…was the figure ahead man, woman, boy, or girl? What if someone was in trouble and needed help? Following a strong inner unction, she jogged on to within a few feet of the stranger, whose bowed and hood-covered head provided no hint as to age or gender.
“Hello.” She bent at the waist, hands planted just above her knees, and drew in a few breaths. “I’m Raine.”
The head raised, and a pair of deep brown eyes, narrowed to suspicious slits, studied her face. A young boy, no more than fifteen…sixteen at the most. Sad eyes. Lips thinned to a straight line.
“So?”
Belligerent, huh? If the kid thought being rude would make her go away, he was in for a surprise.
Raine forced a smile. “So…the typical answer to ‘I’m Raine’ would be something like ‘Hi, Raine. I’m Clark…or Tom…or Sue Ellen.” She made a lame attempt at humor, hoping to garner a smile. It didn’t work. “Whatever folks normally call you.”
“Ha.” The boy looked away, and then back to her. His jaded features pinched at her heart. “You don’t want to know what I’m usually called. A lot of things, and you wouldn’t like any of them.”
“Oh…well, I don’t think I’d want to call you anything you don’t like. Surely you have a name.”
The boy shook his head, and then jerked it hard to the side, shaking a long, wavy strand of hair out of his eyes. “My momma named me Cole, but”—Again, his lips tightened, as did his voice—“I think she forgot it real fast. Most times she calls me Good-for-Nothin’.” An apathetic shrug tugged hard at Raine’s heart. “Sometimes Worthless, when she’s in a better mood.”
Raine stepped closer. “Well, Cole, you are not a ‘good-for-nothing.’ And you’re not worthless either.” She reached out to touch the boy’s shoulder, but thought better of it when he shied away as if he thought she intended to strike him. She tucked her hand into her pocket. “Where are you headed?”
“Anywhere but here.” The kid looked away, his face drawn and stubborn.
Raine clearly got the message: Don’t even try to talk me out of leaving. Her heart ached for him. What kind of mother could push her own son away so hard he’d rather be wherever she wasn’t? “You hungry, Cole?”
Something urged her to make use of his name, if only to reinforce the fact that he had one and it wasn’t an insult of any kind. “The least I can do is see that you’re fed before you hit the road.”
He shook his head in a negative motion, but his words belied the action. “I could prob’ly eat somethin’.”
Raine didn’t hesitate. “Me too. Why don’t you come with me to get my car? I’ll take you into Cambria for lunch. And then, if you still want to leave, I’ll see that you get wherever you want to go.”
The kid bit at his lip while he studied her face as if her entire character were written there. Obviously, he would have been taught about “stranger danger,” and that was a good thing, of course. On the other hand, he’d been all set to hitchhike to anywhere away from Cambria.
She said nothing more. The decision would have to be Cole’s.
The boy hesitated only briefly, then stood, scooping his backpack off the ground as he rose. “That’d be OK, I guess.”
5
Close to an hour later, Raine finished off a plate of genuinely tasty chicken salad. She sat across from Cole in a small diner in East Village.
The boy had wolfed down a hamburger and fries and seemed to savor the chocolate shake he still nursed, holding the cup in both hands. At long last, he looked up and met her gaze.
She smiled. “Did you have enough? Want any more?”
He shrugged. “I’m good.”
“OK. But if you’d like something else, just go ahead and order it.”
He glanced at the menu on a tri-folded card at one end of the table, seemed to hesitate, but then shook his head. “Naw. I don’t need it.”
Raine nodded, her mind in a whirl. Where to go from here? Could she really take this kid, barely more than a child, and leave him off at the side of the road somewhere? She’d prayed silently during their entire mostly silent meal, asking for direction. It hadn’t come.
A forgotten piece of knowledge swam up from somewhere and she gasped. “You know, I think I just remembered the meaning of the name Cole.”
He gave her a crooked grin. “You don’t need to make nothin’ up on my account.”
“I’m not making it up.” And she wasn’t. She hadn’t even known she knew what the boy’s name meant, but there had been that extracurricular course she’d taken on linguistics. Hadn’t it included a look into the meanings of common given names? Yes. They’d called it onomastics.
“If I’m right—and I’m pretty sure I am—Cole means something like ‘triumph’ or ‘victory.’ That’s a pretty far cry from worthless, don’t you think?”
The kid rolled his eyes. “It’s just a name. It don’t really say nothin’ about who I am.”
“Well, that viewpoint could wind up some pretty heated arguments.” Raine smiled and hiked her eyebrows, sending the kid a touch of a challenge. “It’s a proven fact that our names can influence our life choices.”
“Right.” He didn’t roll his eyes, but he didn’t need to. Cole’s tone of voice expressed total disbelief to perfection.
Delighted that she’d been able to draw him out a little, Raine grinned. “Well, now think about it. A person’s name often influences their career choice, even if on a subconscious level.”
“You’re messin’ with me.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” She widened her eyes in as innocent an expression as she could conjure up. “Studies show an inexplicably large number of dentists are named…what do you think?”
He twisted his lips to the side, stared up at the ceiling for a moment, and then shot her a tiny grin. “Dennis?”
“Bingo! And lawyers named Laura or Lawrence. Heart doctors with the last name of Hart. Getting the picture?”
“Yeah, but come on. You don’t really believe all that, do you?” Cole tried to play cool and disinterested, but he couldn’t quite hide the little flicker of interest that lit his eyes.
“Well, I believe there’s some truth in it. Think about names in the Bible—they always held special meaning, usually having to do with location, heritage, occupation, and even personality traits or characteristics. And yet babie
s were named at birth, just as they are now. Their future occupations or personalities couldn’t have been known.”
The boy listened, but doubt still clouded his expression.
Raine sipped sweet tea, studying him over the rim of her glass. She set the glass on the table and shook her head. “You’re a hard nut to crack, Cole. OK, you need a ‘for instance.’ Let me think.” A number of years had passed since she’d taken that class for extra credits. Could she remember enough to convince this young cynic?
“David. It means ‘beloved.’ King David was known as ‘a man after God’s own heart.’ Abraham…’father of many.’ You know about Abraham, right? God made him a promise and fulfilled it, making Abraham’s descendants as many as the sand of the sea. Then there’s Job, which means”—She hesitated, hoping she was right—“‘persecuted,’’ I think. And Job’s faith was tested severely when God allowed Satan to try him in any manner he wished, except taking his life.”
She stopped and hauled in a breath. “Wow. Sorry. I’m talking so much. But I really do believe names have a bearing on who we are. Maybe that’s where the Romans came up with the phrase, nomen est omen, meaning ‘name is destiny.’”
“So what does your name mean?”
“Well”—She grimaced—“mine is probably an exception to the rule about names fitting the person. My first name is Spring. It means ‘young or very active.’ Raine means ‘counsel’ or…” She hesitated. What was it? Something surprising, she’d thought when she first looked it up. “Oh yes. It can also mean ‘mighty army.’”
“And you don’t think they fit you? I do.”
She lifted both eyebrows, surprised to find the kid so forthcoming. “How so?”
He shrugged. “Well, you are young, at least for now. And you’re active—I don’t know you, but you were jogging when you found me. That’s active.” An almost mischievous grin tugged at his lips. “Plus, you do come on like an army when you want something.”
“I do what?” She laughed. “I do not!”
“Do too. I don’t think you would have left me at the side of that road, even if I’d refused to come along with you…which I almost did. You’d have found a way to bring me back to town, no matter what.”