Saving Rain

by Karen-Anne Stewart

  Kas cups her face in his large hands so gently and caresses her cheeks with his thumbs. “My heart shatters, and I want to break Chris and your father in half every time I see you flinch when I make a sudden movement around you or reach for you when I’m angry. I would never hurt you, Raina, no matter how angry I get, I will never hurt you.”

  She is overcome with shame and fury for being so weak by being afraid to be around a man when he’s angry. “I never meant to make you feel that way,” she stammers. “I know you will never hurt me, my body just reacts, and I hate it,” she admits, self-addressed anger seething in her. “I hate being that weak, being so afraid, like some mousy little girl who cringes every time a man’s tone gets loud. I do trust you, Kas, it’s just that memories overcame me last night when I smelled the alcohol on your breath and saw you with the belt in your hand. I want to scream every time I flinch, I don’t want to ever be weak again!” she finishes her tirade, embarrassment and shame immediately washing over her in tidal waves at her rash admission.

  Kas takes a hold of her shoulders in a strong grip. “Look at me,” he commands.

  Raina keeps her gaze fixed on the floor, trying desperately to rein in her wayward emotions and to grasp some semblance of self-control again.

  “Look at me!” he commands more forcefully.

  Reluctantly, she obeys.

  “I don’t want to ever hear you say that you are weak again, do you understand me? You are the strongest person I have ever met, and you have been conditioned to have to protect yourself around men when they are angry. Flinching away is self-preservation, and that is their fault not yours!” he admonishes. “You scare me at how you try to prove that you aren’t afraid by doing stupid things like going after Mr. Sutton last night. Don’t you ever do anything like that again!” he scolds her before pulling her into his arms, into his protective embrace. “I have fallen in love with you, Raina Kapture, and I don’t want to lose you.”

  Raina’s heart feels like it’s in the middle of a marching band, and her knees go weak when she hears Kas tell her that he loves her and how he uses her current name when telling her instead of the one she realizes he now knows. Emotions swirl through her, and she feels dizzy by the sheer power of them. Raina knows that she loves Kas, so much that it frightens her. She has been so afraid to admit it to him, but his words give her the courage, and before she can change her mind, she looks deep into his dark chocolate eyes, full of so much love that she almost chokes on her words, “I am in love with you, too, Kas.”

  Kas closes the distance between his lips and hers, covering her mouth in a heated, hungry kiss. Raina kisses him back feverishly, her lips quivering from urgency and need. His mouth is so hot and sweet against hers, she leans into him, no longer able to hold herself up. His tongue explores her lips, teasing and beckoning hers to allow him access. She opens up to him, and her head spins at how his tongue finds hers, conquering it with his mind-blowing talent of making her feel like she has left her body and is floating in a haze of pure, unadulterated hedonism.

  Just when she feels like she would do anything that he asks, he breaks the connection and leaves her free falling from the after effects of his kiss. Her senses slowly begin to return as he runs his finger down her cheek. Her body feels weak and needy and so vulnerable from the day’s events. She can’t believe how easily she let herself be consumed by his kiss and how her emotions are spinning so unbelievably out of control right now. It scares her all the way to her bones at how every fiber of her feels, pushing her set boundaries, when Kas holds her. She practically melted when he kissed her.

  “I’ve been waiting to do that since the moment I met you,” Kas admits, his voice husky and so sexy as he looks at her, finding it hard to breathe from their reeling kiss and the emotions behind it.

  Suddenly, she feels so shy and her cheeks flush. She concentrates on her fingers, not knowing what to do or say.

  “I hope that I didn’t push you into the kiss,” Kas tells her as he gently tilts her chin with his finger so she is forced to look at him again.

  “You didn’t push me into anything, I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, too.” Her cheeks fire up again at her brazen admission of truth.

  Kas leans down, brushing a soft, sweet kiss across her lips before pulling her back into his arms. He kisses the top of her head, trying to slow the blood rushing through his veins and to calm the tightness in his jeans at the chemistry flying between them right now. He wants nothing more than to explore her lips again, to taste as much of her as she is willing to give, but he knows that now is not the time. He bites back a groan before pulling away from her sweet, intoxicating body and kisses the top of her head again.

  “Raina, it’s time you tell me about your father,” he whispers into her hair.

  She lets out a small sigh of resignation, knowing that he’s right, that it is time that she showed him that she trusts him enough to know about her past, at least some of it.

  He grabs her hand and holds it behind his back as he leads her to the couch. Pulling her feet up underneath her legs, she starts fidgeting with her fingers again. He softly prompts her by nudging her with his knee and placing his hand on hers.

  Her mind drifts back to a time that she would rather forget before she begins, “My father wasn’t always like that, he was so loving and caring with my mom. I remember how they used to look at each other. Even at such a young age, I knew they had something special.” She smiles wistfully at the memory, and Kas runs his thumb softly across her cheek. “Everything changed when my mom died. He started to drink, and he was always so angry.”

  “When did he start hurting you?” Kas asks quietly, gently brushing her hair away from her face so she can’t hide behind it. He wishes he could take away all of her pain, erase everything that has happened to her that has made her so sad.

  “He took all of the pictures of my mom down and put them away somewhere, but I had one of her that I hid underneath my pillow. A few nights after mom died, he walked into my room and saw me holding it, and he just lost it.” She struggles to repress a shudder at the memory.

  “What did he do?”

  “He grabbed the picture and started yelling at me, and I started crying. He screamed at me to stop, yelling that crying shows weakness, and he wouldn’t tolerate weakness. I tried to stop, but I missed her so much.” She picks at a string on the pillow on the couch next to her, not able to look at Kas, knowing that the concern in his eyes will be her undoing.

  “What happened?” he softly urges her to continue.

  Painful memories come flooding back, memories that she has tried to bury, and it’s so hard letting them back in. She takes a deep breath, not wanting to relive any part of her past after her mother died. She forces herself to look at Kas, to have enough strength to allow him into her dark past. “He took his belt off and started hitting me with it, screaming at me to stop crying. The more I tried to stop, the harder I cried, and the harder he hit me. I remember curling up in a ball, trying so hard to stop crying so he would stop hitting me.” Saying the words out loud makes her feel empty, and the old ache in her heart burns back to life.

  Kas pulls Raina into his arms, running his hand down her hair as he kisses the top of her head. “You were only five years old, you missed your mother, you did nothing wrong by crying,” he manages to say while trying to rein in the anger and burning desire to pummel her father with his fists.

  Part of her wants to bury herself in his loving arms and not come out for hours, but the old feelings stirring to life again in her threaten her control, and she pulls back from him. She leans against the couch arm, on the opposite side of the couch. She catches a flicker of an emotion she can’t quite place run through Kas’ eyes before he regains his composure and gives her the space she needs and leans against his side of the couch.

  “How often did he hurt you?” Kas almost chokes on the words, trying to hold back as much of his emotions as possible. He doesn’t want to scare her with the an
ger he’s sure she feels from him as she confesses her past.

  Shaking her head, Raina shyly shrugs her shoulders, wishing that they could stop talking about this, wishing that she could move on and forget it ever happened, but she knows that she will never really forget, no matter how deeply she buries it. She also knows that Kas will not let it go now, so she gives in and offers just enough to, hopefully, satisfy his need to understand her childhood.

  “It wasn’t as often at first. After the first time, he pretty much ignored me for a few weeks. He would work late, then go out with friends to the bar, I was usually in bed before he got home. I also made sure that I didn’t do anything to make him mad.”

  “You were only five, who kept you while he was gone?”

  “He hired nannies until I was nine, and then I stayed by myself.”

  “Didn’t the nanny notice anything that was going on?”

  “He hired so many, he kept changing them so often that none of them were there long enough to notice anything, besides, they didn’t live with us, and he never did anything in front of them or leave marks where they could see them.”

  Kas’ jaw tightens, and she knows that he’s upset by how his vein is twitching. She muses at how his soft, kind eyes are so out of place with the anger radiating from the rest of him.

  “Did you ever tell anyone?”

  Raina cringes at his question, knowing that she could have, but she just couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone. As irrational as it is, it still felt like telling was betraying her father. “No, not until I turned sixteen and was emancipated.”

  Kas leans closer to her and stares at his hands, carefully considering his next words for a few seconds before continuing, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not judging you, but why didn’t you tell someone?”

  “He was still my father, and he wasn’t like that before my mom died. I remembered how he used to be with her, so happy, and I guess I hoped that if I was good enough, he would be that way again. I tried to please him, I would study and get good grades, I cooked, kept the house clean, I even started reading some of his law books, but nothing I did helped. It didn’t matter if I had done something to warrant him punishing me or not, he just seemed to get angry by looking at me.” Raina looks away, embarrassed at how much she’s telling him, not knowing exactly why she’s telling him more than the vague details she had originally decided to divulge.

  “Don’t do that, don’t turn away, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Kas tells her while gently pulling her chin back up so she is eye level with him again. “None of what he did to you was your fault, you didn’t deserve to be beaten, Raina.”

  She lowers her gaze again, not able to bring herself to look at him.

  “Hey, look at me,” he pulls her chin back up again. “You know that you didn’t deserve to be hurt like that, don’t you?” Kas asks, pain searing through him at the thought of her blaming herself for how her father beat her.

  Her pause gives far too much away, and Kas pulls her to where she is facing him. “Raina, you know it wasn’t your fault, right?” he asks a little more forcefully.

  Her whole body goes cold, and she bites her lip to keep it from trembling as her father’s words ring in her ears, his accusations of how her mother would be alive if it weren’t for her play, over and over, in her head like some cruel, broken record.

  “Oh, honey, what are you not telling me?” Kas asks, his voice laced with concern.

  “My mother died after she dropped me off at school,” Raina mutters, her confession barely audible.

  “No, Raina! No!” he states firmly. “You are not to blame for your mother dying. It was an accident, Rain. I read the report of the wreck, and no one was to blame, the roads were wet, it was just an accident.”

  “Logically, I realize that, but if it weren’t for me she wouldn’t have even been on that road that day,” she shoots back angrily. She knows what Kas is saying is true, but she can’t stop the guilt that sweeps through her.

  “Sweetheart, you are not to blame for that, for any of it,” Kas says softly.

  The guilt in her eyes betrays her, and she sees anger flash on his face.

  “Your father blamed you?” he spits out angrily.

  Not able to manage to speak the truth, she just meekly nods her head.

  Kas runs his hands through his hair, obviously trying to calm down and failing miserably at it. “He told you that it was your fault,” he half asks, half states, and her lack of response is the only acknowledgement he needs. “I saw the photos. I saw the awful welts and bruises, did he hurt you like that before?” he questions, his tone shaky and full of uncontrolled emotion.

  Despite her conscious effort to not tell him everything, the words just keep coming. “He never hit me in the face before that. He usually used his belt, and never hit me where someone could see the welts or bruises before that night.”

  “So, he just beat you black and blue in hidden areas, so no one would know!” Dark and ugly rage makes his blood run cold at her father’s cruelty. The knowledge of her father planning on where to hit her somehow makes what he did to her so much more devious.

  “What happened that night? You were covered in bruises, even though they were a few days old in the pictures, you had them on every part of your body.” Kas swallows hard, emotion making his voice hoarse and thick from the memories of the images burning in his head of how badly her father had hurt her.

  “I had already planned to try for emancipation aft-,” she slips, but quickly recovers, not wanting Kas to know that horrific part of her past. “I decided to try to talk with him before he had any alcohol in his system. It was a few days before my sixteenth birthday, and I had poured out all of the liquor in the house and waited for him to come home. I needed to give him one last chance before I went to talk to Judge.”

  She can’t repress the shudder this time as memories of that night invade her. “I didn’t know that he had gotten out of court early that day and had gone to the bar to celebrate a big victory in the case they had just won. He had already been drinking when he got home. He did what he always did when he walked through the door and went straight to the liquor cabinet, but it was empty. I knew when he turned around that it was going to be bad.”

  Her mouth goes dry as she continues confessing the painful details of that night. “He went to the kitchen, and there was none there either, then he saw the empty bottles in the trash, and he was so angry. I tried to explain that I just wanted to talk with him, but he hit me with the back of his hand, knocking me down.” Her voice shakes, and her body goes even colder as she continues, “He started kicking me, and he picked me up and threw me on the table, and I knew he going to use his belt. I managed to get away and run, but my legs were hurting from where he had kicked me, and he caught me in the living room.” She stops, the memories from that night of the pain from her father’s fists and belt bombard her, and she closes her eyes, trying desperately to shut them out.

  Kas gives Raina time to process her emotions before he gently squeezes her hand, encouraging her to go on. She takes a shallow breath and opens her eyes, but she can’t look at him. “He pushed me into the side table, and it broke, that’s how I got the cut on my side. He punched me, and he started kicking me again, then he used his belt.” She stops and wraps her arms around her knees, trying to block out the coldness spreading over her from the memories of the painful sting of her father’s belt and the even harsher pain from his words telling her that she is nothing, just worthless trash. She brings her knees tighter to her chest, not wanting to remember that night anymore.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Kas pulls Raina across the couch onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her, but she doesn’t uncurl from her position and lean into him this time. She tightens her grip around her knees and hugs them tighter to her, desperate to keep the last bit of control she has inside of her intact. She can’t let herself fall into his embrace, she would break if she did that, and she can’t l
et him see her breakdown.

  “Sweetheart, I am so, so sorry,” Kas whispers soothingly while he strokes her hair, but she tunes him out, not allowing herself to be comforted. He holds her for what seems like hours before he lets go of her. He brushes the hair out of her face and studies her for a minute before asking, “The bruises had changed color, they were a few days old when the pictures were taken, what happened between the night he beat you and when the pictures were taken?”

  Raina can tell by the tone of his voice that he is going somewhere with this, and she’s just not ready to lead him there. “I didn’t see him for a few days,” she tells him truthfully, praying that he will take that answer at face value and not dig any further.

  Kas looks at Raina, studying her, and she lowers her head, letting her hair fall as a protective barrier against his trained skills of detecting lies, or in her case, half-truths. His investigative instincts kick in, and he doesn’t let her off so easily. He tucks her auburn shield behind her ear before he slips off the couch to his knees in front of her, where she has no other option but to look at him.

  “I need to tell you something, Raina,” he begins. This time it’s him who looks down as he continues, “I met with Judge Whitaker, Henry, earlier today.”

  All of the air leaves her lungs, “You what?” She uncurls from her sitting fetal position and starts to stand, but Kas grabs her arms, gently but firmly, leading her back down.

  “You talked with Judge?” Fear, shame, embarrassment, and a few other emotions that she doesn’t have the current faculties to recognize right now, wash over her at the same time. She has worked so hard at starting a new life, far away from her old one. In almost four years, Judge has been the only common denominator between the two with their quarterly get-togethers.