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When everyone had cleaned up and gone, and Raina had locked up, she drove herself home. After paying the sitter and checking on JJ, she decided to run herself a luxurious deep bath. She’d earned the hot soak, she decided as she stripped and pulled on a robe while waiting for the bath to fill. In fact, she’d earned a celebratory glass of wine to go along with it. After a quick trip to the kitchen she was soon back with a glass of merlot. She disrobed and lowered herself into the soothing water.
Everything was going to be okay, she told herself. While the antiques business was a little slow in getting off the ground again, she knew it wouldn’t take too long before her old customers would discover her new location. A bit of careful advertising across the county would help, and now, with the popularity of the craft classes, as well, she could afford to place those advertisements. She took a sip of her wine and allowed the mellow flavors to roll across her tongue before she swallowed.
Yes, everything would be fine from now on. She and JJ wouldn’t want for anything. Or anyone.
Later, as she readied for bed, she checked her phone for messages. She’d turned it off during her class and hadn’t gotten around to turning it back on yet. A bit of the shine of happiness from the evening’s success dulled when she saw she had another missed call from Jeb and that he’d left another message. Her finger hovered over the button to simply delete the message, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she listened and felt her happiness dull a little more.
“Rai, c’mon, babe. Call me back. I really need some money fast. I know you’re good for it. Look, this is pretty urgent. Call me.”
Raina closed her eyes in frustration. When would she ever be rid of the man? She’d taken all the legal steps she could to have sole custody of JJ, so she knew the little guy was safe from his father. But what would it take for Jeb to leave her alone?
Stop giving him money. The words echoed in her head as clearly as the last time her father had uttered them to her. Not for the first time she wondered why she continued to help her ex. It wasn’t because she still bore any love for him. That had died long ago. Was it because she felt beholden to him because of JJ? No. She’d made the decision to go ahead with raising him, knowing it was unlikely that Jeb would provide any support. Maybe it was just because, despite herself, she couldn’t help but reach out when she knew a man was down. Her father had often teased her about her need to make everyone happy and feel safe. The thing was, if she kept helping Jeb, when would he ever learn to stand on his own feet and accept some responsibility for everything that happened in his life?
She came to a decision. This ended here and now. She’d no longer be Jeb’s cash cow or his go-to person. She deleted the message and shoved her phone in her purse and climbed into bed. Let that be an end to it, she thought as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Four
Nolan strolled around the Courtyard the next afternoon, telling himself he wasn’t there to see Raina Patterson at all, he was merely doing his job and finding out a bit more about the other tenants. If he could present the acquisition of this parcel of land to Rafiq as an ongoing business concern rather than merely as a land purchase, maybe he could preserve the jobs and incomes of these hardworking people.
He was taken by the work in the silversmith’s shop. The delicacy of the silversmith’s designs was exquisite and Nolan knew his mother would love the pendant designed to look like a peacock tail with tiny cabochon amethysts and peridots inset at the ends of the feathers. He eyed the price tag and decided that the cost didn’t matter. His mother’s pleasure on opening the gift would bring its own reward. She’d had little enough joy from him in the past few years as he’d avoided returning to Royal. Maybe this would help show her that despite his withdrawal from home, she was still very much in his thoughts.
The shop assistant was effusive about his choice, almost talking him into purchasing a matching set of earrings, but he knew that less was very definitely more when it came to his mother’s tastes and that she preferred a few well-chosen pieces to a cacophony of color and design.
“Is this a Christmas gift?” the woman asked.
“No, just something my mom will enjoy,” he answered.
“Ah, that’s lovely. Would you still like me to gift wrap it for you?”
“Please.”
“Are you new to the area?” the assistant asked as she deftly wrapped the pendant in tissue and wrapping paper.
