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“Is that the Barracuda?”
“Yes.”
I turned and looked at him wide-eyed. It was too fast. I stumbled backward and almost fell, but he caught me, walked me the rest of the way to the car, and put me in the passenger side. Things were beginning to swim. I closed my eyes to block them out, but the moment he pulled away they seemed to speed up, whirling in circles about my head.
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Rain, don’t you throw up in this car!”
“I’m going to throw up.”
“Rain, don’t you dare!” he said, pulling over and jumping out. I was dimly aware of him pulling me up and out of the vehicle, just in time for me to be very ungraceful as he held my hair back for me and let me purge my system. When I finally stopped heaving, he put me back in the car and drove me the rest of the way home.
“I need a shower. I stink,” I told him as I wobbled inside.
“I don’t disagree,” he said.
“You want to take a shower with me?” I asked.
“I don’t think you really mean that.”
“I do. I think I need some help.”
Things were a bit blurry after that, but I do remember holding onto him in the shower while he washed me and my hair before helping me out and drying me off. He stood behind me while I brushed my teeth to make sure I didn’t fall over. Somehow, I wound up in a pair of my most conservative pajamas and he lay down beside me on the bed in most of his clothes while I whined to him about the situation I was in.
“Listen, Rain. If you need me to pretend I’m your fiancé, I will do that. We have history, so no one will be surprised, and I promise you that I won’t have any expectations of you.”
I remember feeling relieved, but I don’t remember what answer I gave him. My next memory is of waking up with my head cradled on his shoulder and my hand on his bare chest. He was still in his jeans. By now, I had sobered up and should feel horrified. I would have probably been embarrassed if it had been anyone else, but Jon wasn’t just anyone, and being here with him like this only made me want him again. I began removing his pants, waking him in the process. He grabbed my hand to stop me.
“Rain, not like this. You’re way too drunk to know what you’re doing.”
“I’m not so much anymore. I know exactly what I’m doing. I want you, Jon.”
“Why don’t we just let you sleep it off completely, and then we’ll see how you feel,” he said, and I accepted it, settling for him just holding me while we slept. This time I woke up still curled up against him, instead of wondering where he had gone, but man, my head was throbbing!
7
Jon
We spent most of the next day talking. Rain had a hell of a hangover and apologized profusely for her condition the night before, but I was glad for it. It wasn’t pretty, but if Bailey hadn’t called me to come get her, I might have never come to my senses and realized that perhaps we needed each other. Maybe neither of us had ever really replaced one another after we had lost touch. Though our relationship at this point was more for appearance’s sake, it didn’t mean we couldn’t work on it becoming real again.
Now, we were sitting in a courtroom. Rain waited her turn to be called before the judge, her hand clasped tightly in mine. She was nervous, not only about the outcome, but about lying to a court.
“Sometimes you have to fight dirty, Rain,” I whispered to her. The smell of her hair was almost distracting, fresh and floral. It reminded me of when we were younger and she would lean against me, trusting me to protect her against whatever she might face. “You can’t let people run over you. Your Aunt Bertha doesn’t need that land, and if she gets it, she will do the very thing she is accusing you of intending to do if you are deeded the property. This isn’t about keeping a family plot in your family—it’s pure, unadulterated greed.”
I stood with her and gave her a visible kiss on the lips for all to see before she stepped to the front with Beau. His eyes met mine as he nodded his approval. Despite what people might say about my past, the people in this town knew I had come a long way toward my redemption. I hadn’t touched drugs in years and only drank in moderation, always only when being social, never at home alone or at bars by myself.
Some would argue I shouldn’t drink at all, but I had never had a problem with alcohol and didn’t see it that way. There was the chance that if I lost control of my faculties through overdoing it, I could turn to other things though, and that was why I limited myself to light social drinking. Beyond that, I had become prominent in flipping houses, and that helped the local economy. It meant that some of the older, derelict buildings were given new life and occupants that wouldn’t have otherwise moved into Muskrat Creek.
