After the Storm (Chambers of the Heart Book 3) Read online

  Copyright © 2019 CD Cain

  Published by Fleur-de-lis Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.

  ISBN: 978-1-7345290-0-5

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

  Editing by Kira Plotts

  A Chambers of the Heart Book

  By

  CD Cain

  “Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.”

  –Alice Walker

  Chamber III

  Dedication

  To my little warrior Remington

  Your pawprint is tattooed on my heart

  Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Comes the Calm

  Preface

  With my first two books, I was often asked how much of those stories were a part of my life. How much of Rayne was my life? Each time, I answered not much at all. The first two books in the series, were with very little of my own life or experience. They were merely a fictional creation, (other than the fact that I really love Jeeps). After It Pours was published, my life saw some drastic changes. Unexpected experiences happened that changed my life forever. Honestly, I didn’t cope with them so well in the beginning. As it’s often said, they broke me open. However, at the end of the journey, I was a different woman. I was a better mother, daughter, sister, friend, and most importantly, partner. I’m proud of the woman I raised myself up from the bottom to become. I didn’t know if I would ever write again but when the fingers went back to the keys I found the awakening changed my writing as well. The openness had found its way into my writing. With the publication of this book, I’ll be able to answer differently as this book contains a great deal of myself in it. With the creation of Gentry, I’ve been able to express a raw freedom of a deeper expression. Her character enabled me to feel emotions on a page. I believe After the Storm is my best writing to date. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Each book, I tell myself I’m not writing an Acknowledgment as I generally forget someone by the time it goes to print. Perhaps, I’ll have better luck when it’s a Preface instead.

  To my family, please never forget that you’re the strength in my footsteps. You love me for who I am and that means more than words can ever express.

  To The Ladies of Laurel Creek, our wine club turned into more of a YaYa Sisterhood than a club. We’ve cried. We’ve laughed. We’ve cursed. We’ve painted. What haven’t we done? We even managed to have a glass of wine…or two…or…who’s counting anyway?

  To my friends who’ve formed a mini book club. I’ve had such pleasure listening in on your analysis of the characters and their development. Please don’t ever stop.

  Kira, I couldn’t think of a better editor to share this journey of getting our babies out into the world. Thank you for putting your faith in me to put my best words on a page.

  To my beta readers, there are no words fitting to describe my gratitude for you. Your encouragement along the way has been invaluable. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the time you sacrificed in helping this book to be the best it can be.

  To the readers who never gave up on this series, thank you for the emails, social media posts, and comments on my quite boring webpage. Your continued interest in Rayne and Sam brought me back to my laptop.

  Lastly, to Geanie and Harrison, you two are the gratitude I find each day. You helped me to come back from my lowest time and forgave me for my mistakes. Oh, the life we have had since then. May our days be filled with many more adventures as these past two years have been some of the best of my life. I love you both dearly.

  Chapter 1

  The weight of her heels carried on the tips of her fingers grew exponentially with each step Sam took walking away from the only woman she ever loved. Her lips burned with the knowledge they had placed their last kiss upon Rayne’s forehead at her goodbye. She walked to the edge of the porch and stared out at the crowd of the engagement party. If it hadn’t held such sadness for her, she could have found beauty in the event. The decorations of white, shades of green and faint blue patterns on the dinnerware underneath tree branches adorned with long strands of moss were the perfect setting for a party such as this. For Sam, this party was the finality of the end for her and Rayne. Rayne. Her eyes fixated on her the moment she stepped from around the tree. She watched her, frozen to movement, paralyzed to walk away. She had grown to know Rayne’s mannerisms. She could read her feelings simply by watching the way she held her body or moved her arms. She was angry, quite angry as she talked to Grant. Sam’s back stiffened when she noticed Charlie Grace and Jacques walking toward them. It wasn’t so much Jacques as it was Charlie Grace. That woman was the epitome of a controlling mother. The fight in Rayne’s stance cowered with her mother’s presence next to them. Sam shook her head as she saw Rayne’s body slump into submission and follow them toward the dining tables. Sam couldn’t look away from her. She stood next to the tables as if a lost little girl alone in a land foreign to anything she knew.

  Sam sighed deeply with the love for Rayne that coursed through her. The bitterness and anger she felt earlier in the study when she and Rayne had said such hurtful things to one another had all but been washed away when she saw Rayne broken and overpowered. She wanted to run to her. She wanted to whisk her over her shoulder and take her away from all of this. But she couldn’t. She knew that. Rayne had to be the one to change her life. Sam’s heart hurt for everything—for the loss at a chance to love Rayne, for the horrible words she had just said to her, and for the despair she knew filled Rayne’s soul. It hurt to see a woman she held so dearly be turned into a shell of herself by someone else.

  “Oh Rayne,” Sam murmured and leaned against the column of the porch.

  As if hearing her, Rayne looked up directly into Sam’s eyes. In that moment, they were connected again. Their eyes were locked to one another’s with nothing but love being spoken. None of the anger from before, only love. She felt the love Rayne had for her in the way her eyes held her. But sadly, this was not their time. Sam knew that. She raised her arm and waved goodbye. Just as before in the study, Rayne didn’t wave goodbye back. Instead, she reached up and rubbed the charms of her necklace. Sam couldn’t see the cicada charm on Rayne’s necklace, but she had no doubts it was there. Perhaps Rayne’s refusal to say goodbye had meaning after all.

  The musings of the crowd began to drift away to where all she heard were the croaks of the frogs and the cicada’s call. As much as it hurt, she let herself remember that night on the dock with Rayne. The night of her first true kiss. Not the feverish kiss of stranger’s exploring each other’s body as a way of introduction but rather a kiss hel
d within shared feelings not yet spoken. Never had she given her heart or accepted that of another’s in just a simple kiss. Simple. As if something which changes your life could ever accurately be described as simple.

  Rayne had told her that night meant everything to her. It had made her angry to hear her say that while standing in a room above her engagement party. As she found herself alone walking away from the party, she realized she had given her heart to a woman who couldn’t truly accept it. She knew Rayne loved her. She had just seen it in her eyes. Yet being in love didn’t necessarily give someone the capacity to be ready for that love. It may have been easier for her if Rayne didn’t love her. Then she could pretend it didn’t mean anything. It would’ve been so much easier to walk away from a woman who had only been interested in a lesbian fling before getting married to her high school sweetheart. Hell, she would’ve known exactly how to handle that type of thing. Before Rayne, flings were the only type of relationship she ever wanted. They were easily understood. No strings. No attachments. Pure unadulterated lust. That was what she understood and knew how to deal with. Love was another story altogether. There didn’t seem to be any rules to love. No handbook on how to have it or, in this case, how to lose it.

  “Why in the hell am I still here? How am I still here?” she asked. Her voice was muted by the music.

  She looked down at the invitation in her hand and read it again.

  Join us to celebrate the future Drs. Thibodeaux

  Grant & Rayne are engaged!

  Saturday, March 20, 2004 at 6:00pm

  Home of Mr. & Mrs. Raymee Jacques Doucet

  43 Doucet Court, Brennin, Louisiana

  RSVP to Charlie Grace Doucet 318-546-6788

  Simply reading their names made anger build inside of her again. She blamed them for her heartache, not just Rayne. A part of her believed Rayne would have chosen her if not for the pressure of them but then she had to really hear Rayne’s words. It was everything and everyone that stopped her from being with Sam. She hadn’t yet accepted her lesbian feelings. Hadn’t accepted she was a lesbian. Maybe if Charlie Grace and Grant hadn’t pushed her so much. Maybe if they hadn’t kept trying to force her back into the mold her life had put her in. Maybe if she hadn’t lost her Memaw. If not for all of those maybes, then maybe they would be together.

  She took in a deep breath and looked down at the invitation once more. “Maybe,” she said with a sigh.

  She slipped her heels back on, walked to her car and stopped to look back. The lights from the party glowed from around the house. The night sky was hidden from her by the large oak trees which lined the gravel drive. Their branches stretched across the road to be a canopy above her. The front of the house looked even more expansive with each window illuminated by the interior lights. The majestic home was something right off the cover of Southern Living with its Louisiana French accents of columns connecting the beautiful railing of the upper and lower wall-to-wall porches.

  “Fucking Mayberry,” Sam said as she tossed the invitation over her shoulder and climbed into her car. She took the first exit onto the interstate leading away from anywhere but there.

  Chapter 2

  Gentry stared at the white plastic stick in her hand. She looked at the box and read the instructions again. Any sign of a plus, even if one line was faint, would be a positive result. She looked back at the stick. In her wildest imagination, she couldn’t pretend there was anything other than a glaring, fully pink plus sign staring back at her.

  She closed her eyes and let her head fall back on her shoulders. “How am I here?” She thought back to the night after her shift. He had been a nice guy who stopped overnight at the motel on his way to his next big sale. She saw his type day in and day out as they drive through the small town of Eunice, Louisiana. There was something about him or about that one particular night. She tried to trace the footsteps which led to her going to his room. She closed her eyes to the recognition—the phone call. It was her choice to live alone. Her choice to keep people at arm’s length. There’s a difference between living alone and feeling alone. After the phone call, she felt nothing but a deep, dark loneliness which reminded her of the little girl curled in a ball, hiding in the closet, waiting for when the booze would wear off and she would awake again. She only trusted herself with her protection and safety; so, being alone made sense to her. It felt right. But that night, after the phone call, she wanted to feel something different. He was there to fill a need. It was supposed to be nothing more than an act of forgetting. With the damning plus sign, she realized forgetting would be one thing she would not be doing where that particular night was concerned.

  “What was his name? Pete? Chuck?” She sighed deeply as she stared again at the stick. “Baby daddy. That’s his name.”

  “Gentry Bell, get your ass out here.” Wendy knocked loudly on the door. “Come on. My eyeballs are floating.” She knocked again.

  “Keep your pants on. I’m coming.” She threw the stick in the trash and washed her hands. She adjusted her headband to pull her straight, black hair from her face. She freed the long, dangling earring caught in the strands. She wasn’t that little girl anymore. She didn’t have to hide or run or do anything she didn’t choose to do. Her life was hers. “Well, maybe not completely mine anymore.” She sighed deeply. “We’ll figure out what to do. We always do,” she said to her reflection. “We’ve come this far, haven’t we?” Although, she hadn’t cried with the confirmation of her pregnancy, she thought one final check of her thin eyeliner of her upper and lower eyelids wouldn’t hurt. Her green eyes, those came from her dad. She reached into her pocket to pull out her red lipstick and ran two quick swipes over her lips to reapply. She popped them together. If anything ever did bring her attention to her mother, it was her lips. From the photographs she had seen, she knew the curve of them that formed a plump center came from her. It was her most striking physical quality. Maybe, briefly, she understood why she had left. The last thing Gentry needed or wanted in her life was a baby. So, perhaps, she got that from her mother as well.

  Bam. Bam. Bam. Wendy knocked harder on the door. “Gentry, I ain’t playing out here. Open the damn door. Right now!”

  Gentry jerked open the door to find a dancing Wendy standing in the door way. “She’s all yours.”

  “As if,” Wendy said as she brushed quickly past her. “If I wet my pants, you’re going to have to grab my number four table.”

  “How about if I grab it anyway? You concentrate on staying dry.”

  “Okay. Get her some more coffee. I just made a fresh pot,” Wendy yelled from behind the bathroom door.

  “Yeah, okay.” Gentry walked down the short hallway of the diner and peered out across the room. She stepped behind the counter and looked over at table four to see a woman staring at her coffee cup. She grabbed the coffee pot and headed to her table. She had always been envious of hair like hers. It was that cute, wavy hair. Not the super tight curl or ringlet curls but wavy with defined layers. With a cut like that, a girl could walk in from a windstorm and look like she had just fixed her hair. She loved it. Her hair was impossibly straight and wouldn’t hold a curl if her life depended on it. When the wind got a hold of hers, no one ever confused it for a purposeful style.

  “Hi. Need a refill?” Gentry asked as she reached the table.

  “Sure. Thanks,” Sam said flatly. She looked at Gentry. She wasn’t the same waitress she had given her order to. This was a woman who appeared to be in her early to mid-thirties. She assumed this not because her skin didn’t appear as youthful as the previous waitress, but more because her eyes were that of someone much older. They didn’t have that perky glow the other waitress had. “Where’s…ummm…Wendy?”

  “She’ll be back. She went on break.”

  “Oh.” Sam looked back at her cup and pushed it to the edge of the table. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Can I get yo
u anything else?” Gentry watched as Sam poured sugar into her coffee. “Maybe another pound of sugar?”

  Sam continued to pour sugar into the cup.

  “Or better yet, how about an entire sugar cane plantation. You know, so you won’t run out?”

  “What?” Sam said absentmindedly but then seemed to catch onto her humor. She smirked. “No. I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Alright.” Gentry walked back to the counter but turned back to look at Sam. She looked familiar for some reason. “Hey, Wendy, who is that?”

  “Who’s who?” Wendy said as she smoothed out her waitress apron.

  “That girl at table four. She looks familiar.”

  “Oh, she was in here yesterday morning.” She filled a cup of coffee and took a sip. “One helluva a tipper. All she had was coffee but left me a twenty. She ordered food. I’m hoping for another whopper of one today.”

  “That’s right. She sat at five and stared at a tiny white box for what seemed like forever. You must’ve taken her two pots.”

  “Yep, that was her.” Wendy leaned against the counter. “Wonder what was in the box. She doesn’t have it today or well, she’s not staring at it if she does.”

  “Hmmmm.” Gentry thought about Wendy’s question. Generally, she felt people’s business was their business. But she had to admit she was curious as to what had been in it.

  “Maybe she was proposed to. Then got freaked out and ran away. Any minute now, some good-looking man is gonna burst through that door, fall down on his knees, and beg her to come back.”

  Gentry laughed, grabbed an empty white cup, and reached for the coffee pot. “You’ve been watching too many Julia Roberts movies.” She thought about the pink plus sign, filled her cup only half full, and then put the pot back. She hated the thought of drinking water for the rest of the day. She was one who got her daily water intake from that which was in coffee, iced tea, and coke. She rolled her eyes and may have even groaned as she thought of what the future months held in the way of her caffeine intake.