Healing Rain
Healing Rain
The Second Novel in the Rain Trilogy
Karen-Anne Stewart
Healing Rain
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges that the trademarked status and the trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
Cover photo was purchased from Thinkstock.com. Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher herby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Due to sensitive issues of abuse and human trafficking, mature scenes, and some violence,
The Rain Trilogy
is recommended for readers 18 and older.
Copyright © 2013 Karen-Anne Stewart
All rights reserved.
ISBN:
1505813689
ISBN-13:
978-1505813685
Contents
Dedicated to all of the survivors and the heroes who help them.
To my husband, thank you for of your love, continued patience, support, and encouragement. I love you!
To Jim Guilliams and Talor Stewart, thank you for your expertise.
To Todd Ervin, my favorite alpha geek, you are the man!
To Valeria Gardin, Diane Maxwell, Shannon Lopez, and RJ Galloway, your encouragement and faith mean more than you know.
To my parents, what can I say that you don’t already know? Love you both!
To the best beta readers and helpful editors, Bret Stewart, Diane Maxwell, Jackie Parker, Heather Lindall, Keri Wilson, Penny West, Karen Galloway, Julie Weatherman, and Bobi Gillespie, all of you are AMAZING!!! Thank you for your time, advice, honesty, and awesome support.
To all the authors and reviewers out there who have given me priceless advice throughout the journey thus far, it is much appreciated and will never be forgotten.
Last, but not least, to all the readers who have already sent me your support and kind words regarding The Rain Trilogy, I couldn’t do it without you. You rock!
The rain continues to pelt relentlessly against the windshield as Kas drives to nowhere. Brutal memories of earlier in the evening replay in his head. ‘
Raina
Kapture,
will
you
do
me
the
great
honor
of
becoming
my
wife.’
He shakes his head, fruitlessly trying to dislodge the memories from his mind. Gritting his teeth, his grip on the steering wheel tightens as he steals another glance at his phone, swearing loudly when it remains silent. Bitter agitation mounts in him as he anxiously awaits the call from Chase, telling him where the trace on Raina’s cell leads.
Agonizing thoughts keep exploding inside of his head.
‘I
can’t—I’m
so,
so
sorry,
but
I
just
can’t.’
His heart is broken and bleeding from the transgressions committed earlier tonight.
The punishing rhythm searing through his temples is welcoming, he would take any form of physical pain to distract him from the torment ripping through his soul. Thoughts of Raina ravish him. He thinks back to the sadness in her jade eyes when she had pulled away, her expression had cut through him like the sharpest knife. His heated words ring through his head,
‘Do
you
think
that
I’m
going
to
let
you
down,
that
I’m
going
to
disappoint
you
like
every
other
man
in
your
life
has
so
far?
I
am
not
your
father,
and
I
am
not
Chris!’
Despair seeps through him like poison. His knuckles are taut and white from his rigorous grip on the wheel. ‘
What
do
I
have
to
do
to
prove
that
I
will
not
hurt
you,
that
I
will
never
hurt
you?
Rain,
talk
to
me
...
please.’
His jaw twitches angrily from how he handled the situation, just letting her leave when she was obviously in torment.
‘Just
let
me
go—I
can’t
be
who
you
want,
who
you
need.
I’m
not
good
for
you.’
He viciously hits the steering wheel as he thinks of how he would have never had let her walk out of the door if he had only known her father had found her.
The earlier call to Henry was futile, the judge hasn’t heard from Raina and has no idea of where she might be, but he was adamant about having Kas promise to call him when he finds her. The thin thread of his remaining sanity is vigorously unraveling. His usual inflexible grip on control has steadily eradicated since meeting Raina, but the derailing loss of control he is experiencing right now threatens to destroy him. He is known for his strength, his adept skills of being a leader. Kas’ authority is both respected and even feared at times, but, right now, in his current state of brokenness from not knowing where Raina is, or if she’s okay, he is only a shell of the man he usually embodies.
Unable to take another second of maddening silence, he calls Dexter, needing both a distraction from the waiting and a favor from his boss to pull some strings. He is prepared to beg Dexter if he has to, he doesn’t care about what anyone thinks of him anymore, he just needs to find Raina and make sure her father is nowhere near her.
The call goes to voicemail, and Kas lets out a string of strong expletives as he nearly crushes the phone from his furious grip. Seconds later, the abused phone finally rings, and his heart jumps to his throat when he sees that it’s Chase. “Where is she?” he demands.
“She’s at BWI. Kas, what the hell is going on?” Chase demands in return.
“I don’t have time to explain it to you right now, just meet me there.” Kas hangs up before Chase has the chance to protest. He whips his jeep around, the tires squealing on the wet road as he grabs his light, throwing it on his dash. Flipping on the bright flashing blue emergency signal, he tears down the interstate to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
The airport traffic is a nightmare. Deciding to bypass the bumper to bumper line by pulling onto the median, he effectively cuts through and screeches to a jerky halt in front of the main entrance. Sprinting towards the doors, he flashes his badge at the security guards yelling at him about leaving his vehicle in a no parking zone. He scans the overly crowded airport, filled to capacity with the Christmas passengers trying to get home, or wherever they are going over the holidays, but doesn’t see Raina anywhere. His already acerbic agitation steadily increases as the man behind the ticket counter insists on following protocol and checks his credentials.
His phone rings, and he answers it gruffly, “Are you here yet?”
“I’m walking through the door now, I don’t have a handy badge like you do that I can waive around so I can leave my car parked half on the curb.”
“Meet me at the ticket counter,” he growls.
Chase finds Kas ready to jump across the counter and cause serious bodily harm to the poor man who doesn’t seem to be typing fast enough to satisfy him. He places his hand on Kas’ shoulder, pulling his attention away from the nervous recipient of his foul mood. “Would you like to clue me in on what is going on now?”
Kas gives the ticket agent a deadly glare before turning to Chase. “Raina took off. Seth said her father went to the university to see her. I don’t know where Waterford is now, or if she’s with him.”
Chase tenses, hearing that Raina has seen her father causes worry to seep through him as he thinks of how the encounter may have affected her.
The visibly shaken ticket agent interrupts, informing them hesitantly, “Miss Kapture took the last flight to Pisa, sir.”
Kas runs his hand through his hair exasperatedly, but relieved, deducting that she’s not with her father if she’s on her way to a different country. His relief is short lived as he realizes that she’s probably running away from Waterford, or maybe even him. He looks at Chase wildly, “She went to Italy? She can’t go back to her cabin, or to a hotel? She has to go to Italy! Why does she always have to be such a flippin’ over-achiever?”
Chase places his hand reassuringly on Kas’ shoulder, knowing that he is about to come undone any second, “We will find her.” The man has shrunken away from the counter, and Chase gives him his best calming smile, the psychologist in him shining through, “When is the next flight to Pisa?”
The ticket agent shoots a panicked look to Kas before Chase expertly steps in front of him, blocking the petrified agent’s view of the man who looks like he might take off his head. “Tomorrow morning,” he manages to answer Chase without hyperventilating.
Kas looks like he’s going to shoot fire straight from his eyes, and Chase gives him a warning glare, knowing that if anyone can calm him down it’s him or Raina, and since she’s the one they are looking for, it looks like he’s the only man for the job.
After a silent struggle, Kas reins in his anger enough to not appear murderous. He takes out his wallet and hands the man his credit card, “Two tickets to Pisa.” He doesn’t have to ask if Chase is going with him, he knows by now that his best friend since kindergarten has his back.
Raina slips her phone inside her purse, wishing she had her iPad with her. It would have been much easier to send the e-mails to Seth and Dexter from that instead of using her phone. She is only one hour into the nine hour flight and is desperate to keep herself distracted so she doesn’t break down sobbing in first class.
Normally, she would be perfectly happy to fly coach, but she needs to be far away from people right now, at least as far away as a crowded plane can possibly allow. Barely hanging onto her fragile composure, the emotional torrent inside of her is threatening to break her into a million splintering pieces. She knows that it’s useless to try to distract herself, it’s an impossible task to turn her attention away from her current state of emotional hell.
Closing her eyes, her treacherous mind replays Kas’ sweet proposal, over and over, in her head. She wanted to tell him ‘yes’, more than she has wanted anything else in her life, she had wanted to tell him ‘yes’. A tear slides down her cheek as she remembers the broken affliction in his eyes when she had told him ‘no’. She grabs her side when the plane hits a small patch of turbulence; the pain in her abdomen from her father’s vicious punch is making the flight very uncomfortable. She thinks of her father’s cruel words when he told her that she will only ruin Kas’ life, and another hot tear escapes, scalding her shattered heart.
The vibration of her cell phone startles her, dragging her away from the memories of earlier tonight. Raina can’t stop the tears from running down her face as she reads Seth’s response to her request to fill in for the translation specialist position until Dexter can find her replacement. She knew that Seth would take her place, but she wasn’t prepared for his news that he knows about her father, or the heartfelt apology he e-mailed for leading him to her. Fear prickles through her as she reads that Seth has told Kas about her father paying her a visit.
Her father’s threat of destroying Kas’ career sends a shot of panic through her veins. She has hurt him enough, she won’t be able to handle it if she is the cause of him being subjected to her father’s wrath and powerful means to damage what Kas has worked so hard to achieve. Any doubts she was struggling with by taking such a drastic step, getting on the first plane to Pisa, vanish. She realizes that her being far away from Kas is the best way to protect him from her father. The agonizing ache in her heart is in drastic discordance with her mind, and she furiously wipes away the tears that she can’t seem to control any longer.
A passing flight attendant notices her anguish and hands her a box of tissues, “Honey, are you okay?”
The kindness behind the woman’s words is Raina’s final undoing, and she drops her head into her hands and weeps.
Chase wraps his jacket tighter around him as the bitter December wind whips punishingly through his wet clothing. After moving Kas’ jeep to the correct parking area so it doesn’t get towed, he shoves the keys into his pocket as worry causes tight creases around his dark blue eyes when he contemplates Kas’ combustible state. He has never seen him this close to completely losing his head. He has witnessed his friend’s inflexible grip on control slowly loosen over the past several months, knowing that Raina has played the main role in that change. Despite the dark circumstances behind it, the transition in Kas’ release of total control has been mostly healthy and positive, until tonight.