“I’ll give you a deal. You can even pay in installments. You know I work at Pierce Brothers, and we’re the best in the Northeast. You won’t regret it.”
He thought she’d agree, but a flare of anger lit her eyes and she stepped back. Her voice stabbed at him like icicles, sharp and frozen. “I said no. I don’t need your help or your brothers’. With me or my bar.”
She walked away with a withering look, and Dalton wondered again what the hell he was missing.
chapter four
Raven had the dream again.
She was walking down a road, sun drenching her body, a bunch of wildflowers fisted in her hands. Contentment stirred within as she followed the familiar path, listening to the calls of birds and enjoying the light tug of wind in her hair. She was part of her father’s paintings, in a still, serene place she liked to visit when life got stressful or she needed clarity.
A squeal of brakes echoed in the air, along with twisting metal crashing into metal. The flowers dropped from her hand and she began running, faster and faster, sensing with every step that she was nearing a terrible truth that would destroy her.
But she couldn’t stop. She ran until the breath tore from her lungs in painful gasps, and she skidded to a halt in front of the horrifying scene unfolding before her.
Fire burning bright and melting metal. The explosion of glass and the stench of burnt rubber and oil rising in a fury of smoke. Her father’s beloved face appeared through the broken window, screaming her name as the flames ravaged him alive. Raven sobbed and tried to run to him, but her feet were stuck to the ground and she was unable to move. His hands reached out, clawing frantically, and finally she was free and rushing toward him.
Seconds before she reached the car, a woman’s face appeared beside her father’s, her mouth twisted into a terrible smile. She grabbed Raven’s father and dragged him back, screeching like a demon, her words echoing over and over in a terrible mantra that Raven would never forget.
“He belongs to me, not you! He belongs to me! Me, me, me, me . . .”
Then the car exploded, and Raven watched her father burn.
She woke up with her pajamas stuck to her damp skin and her heart beating erratically. Gulping in breaths, she tore off the sheets and jumped out of bed, trying to calm herself. Crap. The nightmare had haunted her after the funeral, until she’d been forced to see a grief counselor by Aunt Penny and given a range of pills to cut her anxiety and help her sleep. She’d literally felt on the brink of a nervous breakdown, unable to process the sudden loss of the one man in the world she loved and trusted. After two years of doctors and burying herself in her room, she’d turned to a different type of distraction to stop the nightmares. A wild ride of destruction that had built like a snowball and morphed into an avalanche. There’d been boys and sex. Drugs and alcohol. She’d dropped out of college, telling Aunt Penny she wanted to see the world, but most of her journeys included bunking with strangers, getting high, and waking up with men she didn’t remember.
Until she realized life was whizzing by and she’d done nothing to claim her space.
Her father’s words haunted her from beyond the grave.
“Baby girl, always remember we’re given a responsibility in this life to claim our space. You can decide to fill the world with beauty and kindness, or laziness and self-destruction. Choose well.”
In a matter of weeks, she’d decided to get her shit together. She came home, got a job in a restaurant, rented a studio apartment, and registered for online classes. She mended her relationship with her aunt and swore to beat the demons. She made peace with the past and forgot about solving the endless mystery of why her father ran off with a stranger. And finally, the nightmares stopped.