Protecting Rayne

by Emily Bishop

  “I want you to understand how little all of that means to me,” he said. “The fame. I never cared about it. I only wanted to make movies because I was passionate about it. I love what I do.”

  “And I’ll never fit into that world, Jarryd.”

  “Don’t say that.” He touched my elbow, and the clouds scudded across the moon and plunged us into darkness again.

  My pulse skipped up a notch at the skin contact, his warmth pressed against my bare elbow. I shivered.

  “You’re freezing,” he said.

  “Yeah, I didn’t expect to come out here after work. I didn’t bring a sweater.”

  “Here,” he said and pulled off the t-shirt I’d helped him pick out this afternoon. He handed it to me. “Put it on.”

  “You’re half-naked. This is ridiculous, Jarryd.”

  “I don’t care. You’re cold. I’m not trying to prove anything to you. I want you to keep warm,” he replied. “Besides, I spent hours on set in freezing cold water for Kill Switch. I can barely feel the wind anymore.”

  I accepted the shirt and tugged it on, shuddering again, this time because of the scent it carried. How was I supposed to concentrate on what I had to say with that against my skin? “I’m not a part of your world, and you’re not a part of mine.”

  “We’ve discussed this before,” he replied and took my hand, squeezed gently. “It hasn’t changed anything. Not how I’m feeling or how much I want you, Aurora. So why discuss it again?”

  “Because we have to.” If I wasn’t firm about this, I’d fall into the same trap all over again. His smell, his touch, and then his embrace. It all led down that path to his bed and then my heart would implode all over again.

  “I understand this is difficult for you, and that you have other goals,” he said and stepped closer to me, bathing me in more of that irresistible heat. He ran hot and every cell in my body responded to it. I tingled from head-to-toe. “You want to stay in Moondance. You want to be here and live here in this cabin and be happy.”

  “Yes.” I searched for his gaze in the dark but caught nothing except a glint from his eyes. The clouds had covered the sky again and hidden us from each other.

  “And I want to get out,” he replied. “This was Felicity’s town, too. You know that.”

  “Yes,” I repeated.

  “I wanted to get out, to run away from Pride’s Death and the obligations and the memories of what this whole thing meant.”

  “You still care about her,” I said, and my heart missed two beats in a row.

  “Not really. I care about her as a human being, but not in the way you’re thinking.” Jarryd ran his hands down my arms now, encircled my wrists with his fingers. “I thought I knew what I wanted out of life, and now it’s muddled up.”

  “Why were you with her?” The question had burned at me several times during the night. She’d seemed such a bitch every time we’d spoken.

  “Felicity was different when we met. She was less cynical, I guess. Always interested in what was best for her career, but she seemed to care about things. She seemed to want the best for others instead of herself.”

  “What changed?” I asked.

  “I was busy, she was busy, and eventually, she wandered, and I let it happen. I didn’t pay attention to what was going on at the time,” he replied. “Felicity was strong, and I admired that in her. But it wasn’t your type of strength.”

  “She seems so…”

  “Bitchy?” Jarryd asked and laughed. “Yeah, that’s her now. I think our breakup upset her more than she’s willing to admit. It changed her, and this is the result.”

  Was it wrong that I wanted to know more about this? I hadn’t judged him for having dated her, for allowing her to be in his movie even after the breakup, but these were answers I needed to understand who he was inside.

  “Felicity is the past. She broke my trust and meeting you, Aurora, was an eye-opener for me.”

  “You know, it’s not normal. I feel muddled, too, and it’s scary. It’s not how this is supposed to be.”

  “This?” he asked, and his voice, usually so smooth, deep and sturdy, quavered.

  “Life. I don’t know. I don’t have everything figured out. You’re the older one, you’re supposed to know where this is going, right?”

  He laughed, a soft expression of mirth that drove tingles down my spine. “I’m twenty-eight, I don’t have anything figured out, Aurora. I want to spend time with you, and when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you. That’s not normal, but normal isn’t where it’s at. You should know that.”

  I was the tarot card reader. The fool. “I guess.”

  Jarryd drew me into a hug, and I rested my temple against his naked chest, inhaled deeply, and relaxed for the first time all day, since the morning waking up with him and gobbling down fries.

  That desire swam between us and goosebumps rose on my back, but at the same time, it was as if I’d found someone I truly liked. It wasn’t just sex. He had a sense of humor, he cared, he was protective, and still, totally out of my league.

  “You smell so good,” he muttered and pressed his lips into my hair, inhaled.

  I slipped my arms around his waist then felt the muscles down his back, corded, his skin covered in goosebumps too. “You’re cold. You should take your shirt back.”

  “No, I’m good,” he said.

  I didn’t argue. The wind rose among the trees and whispered through the leaves again. It danced across our skins, as soft as a lover’s kiss. The same kisses we’d shared at this same spot days ago.

  “Will you forgive me for earlier today?” he murmured.

  “I don’t need to forgive you,” I replied. “You didn’t do anything wrong, really. You did what you had to.”

  “I should’ve followed you out, but the fuckers blocked me from moving. Next time, I’ll shove ‘em aside to get to you. You know, I saw the look on your face, and I was like, shit, that’s it. You’re done. You don’t want anything to do with me anymore. I’ve blown it.”

  “You’ve blown it with me?” I pulled back and searched for him in the dark. Nothing except a vague outline. I touched his face, ran my fingers over the stubble and felt the soft lips. He kissed my fingertips and breathed in again.

  “I thought so. Have I? Have I totally fucked it up?”

  “You couldn’t help it that they came after you,” I said.

  “They wouldn’t know where I was if it wasn’t for the way I overreacted with your ex the other night,” he replied. “I blew it then, too. I lose my senses around you.”

  I probed further, feeling his nose then his eyebrows, eyelids, back down to his lips. He emulated me, feeling my face, cupping my cheeks, pulling me closer, closer.

  I held my breath and leaned in for the kiss.

  Moonlight danced from the heavens, between two parted clouds and finally illuminated his face, half of it, at least, and the cabin behind him.

  “Beautiful,” he said.

  Jarryd brought his lips to mine and brushed his heat across them. The light pressure sent tingles from the contact down my chest and through to my core. Just that one kiss and my head spun.

  I inhaled and separated from him. “Wow,” I whispered. “Why is that possible?”

  “What?”

  “That feeling.”

  Jarryd tucked my hair behind my ear and tugged on it. “I don’t understand how any of this is possible but I’m not going to question it. This is the happiest I’ve been.”

  “You don’t mean that. How can that possibly be true? You’re an actor. You go to parties and events, you make money doing what you love. How—?”

  “I don’t know how but it is. Maybe it’s because all of those things are the material, the outside shit, and what I feel now is…” He trailed off and let the implication hang in the air.

  Barely a week since he’d first stepped into my tent at the fairgrounds and there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t want the end to that sentence. Not even the
parts that were scared of what the future might hold.

  “You know this won’t end well,” I managed.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve got Pride’s Death to think of, and a reputation to uphold, and I don’t fit into that plan. Face it, Jarryd, this is a fantasy and all fantasies come to an end.” Just like the ones my mother had told me when I was a kid.

  “How can you be this negative?” he asked and kept touching me, fingers to my throat now, as if to feel my pulse. “You’re the one who believes in fate and destiny, crystals, palm reading, and everything else.”

  “So? I’ve spent years on the road with and without my mother, experiencing the worst and best of what humanity has to offer,” I replied. “I’ve always been a realist because it was forced on me, and I’ll be a realist now, in particular. No matter how we might feel about each other, this can’t end well for either of us.” Especially not for me. Yet I’ve made the choice to continue, and if he kisses me now I won’t say no. I’d fall into bed with him all over again.

  “Aurora—”

  More of the cloudbank thinned, and the moon illuminated the cabin in full, including the sign pegged in front of it in the long grass. For Sale. No, it didn’t say that. It said…

  My stomach dropped into my feet. “Oh my god.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “I’m too late,” I said, and swallowed around the lump in my throat. I pointed at the sign.

  SOLD.

  “I’m too late! Someone bought it!”

  “What?” Jarryd let go of me and spun toward the cabin and its sign. “What the fuck? I thought no one wanted this place except you.”

  I shook my head, mute. This was exactly what I got for shifting focus from what I wanted to the man I couldn’t possibly have. This was my punishment from those fates and destinies he’d mentioned.

  I shuffled to the bench, sat down, and pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. Memories flooded me.

  Mom baking cinnamon crunch cookies in the kitchen while I did homework in this same spot, the scent drifting out to me through the open kitchen windows, along with her humming, a low, pleasant and tuneless sound.

  Christmas lights in the window, sparkling, welcoming me home after a day at work. The cold snow surrounding the cabin, and us shoveling it out. Building a snowman together, frolicking around, a snowball fight. Unwrapping presents inside by the fireplace.

  All the true happiness I’d had in my life, the certainty, had been condensed into the two years we’d stayed in this cabin together. Sure, she’d tried her best to keep me healthy and happy on the road, but she’d been in a constant state of stress and I’d picked up on that.

  The cabin was everything. And now it was gone.

  Chapter 21

  Jarryd

  “Aurora,” I said and tucked a hand under her elbow. She hadn’t moved in two minutes and didn’t look up at the mention of her name. The clouds had covered the moon again and blocked out that sign, but it didn’t make a damn difference. “Aurora, come on. Come with me.”

  The front of the cabin at the lake was a murky shape and nothing more.

  “It’s over,” she said, muffled by her hands. “It’s all over and it’s my fault for believing it could be anything but—”

  I lifted her from the bench and held her upright. “Aurora, let’s go.”

  “Where?” she asked and finally dropped her hands. Her eyes were glazed over, watery. She didn’t even see me properly.

  “This way. Come.” I led her around the side of the lake and unpacked the rage now burning in the center of my chest. Someone had done this to her. Someone had destroyed her dream, and I’d find them and make them pay.

  She leaned heavily against me, and I held her to my side and upright, kept us both moving by sheer force of will. This smacked of sabotage. No one had been interested in the cabin. It was half rundown and selling cheap for that reason.

  “Through here,” I grunted and crunched over twigs and grass, onto the dirt path that led back to the main road. “Aurora, come on, honey.” I tried softening my tone, but I was keyed up, already, impatient.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “The hotel.”

  “OK,” she whispered then stumbled and dipped forward. Her arms shot out to break the fall but I looped my arm around her waist and caught her in time.

  “Easy,” I said.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “What do I do?” Aurora halted mid-stride and sniffled. She pressed her face against my naked chest and sobbed. Wetness smeared against my skin, and my muscles tensed up.

  I’ll make whoever did this pay.

  “That was all I wanted,” she whispered, and I barely made out the words through the tears. Her entire frame shook, and her knees buckled.

  I caught her again, held her to my body. “It’s going to be OK.”

  “No,” she whimpered. “Nothing’s going to be OK.” The pressure of the week and everything that’d happened had finally broken, and she clung to me, desperate for support. Desperate for the comfort only I could provide.

  “Put your arm around my neck,” I said.

  She did it. A featherlight weight against my shoulders.

  “Hold on.” I bent and hooked my arm at the back of her knees then lifted her. I adjusted her weight in my arms and set off, walking fast now. The sooner we got back to the hotel, the sooner I could find out who’d done this.

  Aurora’s head rested against my collarbone, hair pressed flat, and more tears leaked from her, wetting my chest. I tightened my grip and ducked beneath low-lying branches, strode over roots, my footing sure despite the lack of light.

  The trip didn’t take long, five minutes max, and I hit the road and didn’t quit walking.

  Aurora didn’t speak or move much but held her body against mine, the light from one of the streetlamps caught her face and my heart wrenched, the anger redoubled. Her eyes were open, staring, seeing things I couldn’t fathom, and her skin was too pale. Tears continued to stream down her cheeks.

  “Almost there,” I said and broke into a trot down the road. My muscles ached a complaint, and I ignored it. Another five minutes and the hotel waxed into view, a tacky plastic crescent moon pasted to the front of the wooden sign which read: Moondance Motel.

  Luke’s Porsche was parked out front where it’d been when I’d left earlier in the evening. A solitary figure stood beside the entrance to the motel, a puff of smoke exhaled, and the orange pinprick of a coal in the darkness told me all I needed to know. Felicity was on one of her smoke breaks.

  She moved into the light and stared at our approach.

  “We’re here,” I said.

  Aurora nodded and continued staring into space. Christ, that filled me with more anger than I could handle. I’d always been the type to remain professional, to let the minor irritations slide by, but when enough pressure built up, I was bound to explode, and I’d just about reached that point.

  I trotted past my ex-fiancée and opened the motel’s glass front door with one hand, twisting my body to reach the handle.

  Felicity didn’t say a word, lucky for her.

  I slipped into the motel lobby and trotted past a wide-eyed Kevin, who half-rose out of his seat. “Is everything OK, Mr. Tombs? Do you need me to call the cops?”

  “No. Is the kitchen open?”

  “No, sir, it closed a half hour ago. The chef hasn’t left yet, though. What do you need?”

  “Food,” I replied. “And drinks. Surprise me.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kevin scooted out from behind the desk and rushed off, his stomach wobbling, a patch of wetness at the small of his back.

  I strode up the hall toward my room, dug the keys out of my pocket, unlocked the door, and carried her in, maneuvering so we fit through the door as one. I kicked it shut behind me then walked her over to the bed.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” she whispered.

  “Right,” I replied and set her d
own on the bed, gently. “No, you’re right. I should’ve left you there and let you sleep on the bench.”

  “Why are you angry?” Aurora asked, and her gaze cleared at last. She blinked up at me as if she hadn’t realized I was there until that moment.

  “Because someone’s fucking with you, and I won’t let it happen,” I replied.

  “It’s not your problem,” she said.

  “Of course it’s my damn problem.” I strode to the dresser and threw the doors open. I dragged out one of my cotton button-ups and slipped it on, didn’t bother closing it. “You’re mine, Aurora, whether you want to admit it or not. You’re mine, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  She struggled upward. “Yours?”

  “Yes,” I said and halted at the end of the bed. “You have a problem with that?”

  Aurora stared at me for a full minute, silent, her cheeks still wet from the tears she’d shed on the way over here. She shook her head once, left then right, and settled back. “No.”

  “Good. Now, let’s get to the bottom of this shit.” I whipped my cell out of my pocket and unlocked the screen.

  “Who are you going to call?”

  “Everyone. I’ll wake up the entirety of Moondance if I have to. I want to know who that agent is.”

  “Easy,” she said and sighed. “Just look it up online.”

  A knock at the door cut off my reply. I walked to it and wrenched it open.

  Kevin took a startled step backward and held out a covered tray as an offering. “Food, sir. Just like you asked.”

  “Thank you, Kevin,” I replied but didn’t soften my tone. I couldn’t with this much fury coursing through me. I took the tray from him, nodded, and shut the door. I’d have to tip him later.

  “What’s that?”

  “Food,” I said and walked it over to the bed. I placed the tray in front of her and whipped off the lid. Two burgers and a bunch of fries sat on the plate, alongside two Cokes. The best they could rustle up at a late hour and good enough. “Eat. You need sugar. Drink the Coke.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Drink the Coke, Aurora. You need the sugar.” I bent and kissed her forehead to soften the blow of my words then marched to the desk in the corner and leaned against it. I opened my browser and typed out the keywords: Moondance and real estate agents. A list of hits came up.