Smokey didn’t like that he felt shame, but he did. Harlow wasn’t wrong. Raven had her own life, and he hadn’t meddled in any part of that.
This was on him. He should have done better by her.
“I don’t know if I should tell you,” Harlow said.
“Your brother told us to come to you.”
“Yeah, well my brother and I don’t exactly see eye to eye all the time.”
“I just need to know she’s okay,” Smokey said. “That’s all.”
Harlow rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you guys can’t figure this out. Think about it. If she’s not with Abriana or Ava, then there is only one other person I know because I have witnessed it with my own two eyes, that she’d be with.”
She looked between the two, but Smokey was drawing a blank.
“Seriously. Wow. You know what, this is why I am never going to date a guy. You guys are useless. She’s with Larissa, okay? The priest’s daughter. That’s where I’d go and look. Larissa is the only person in town that I’ve seen Raven be nice to, and I mean polite, nice, and even smile at her.” Harlow shoved her lollipop in her mouth. “Idiots.” She muttered the word with it in her mouth.
Smokey thanked her and left the building, getting on his bike.
“Smokey, I’m going to stick around here for a little bit,” Hunter said.
“Fine. This is something I’ve got to do on my own,” he said. He had to make things right with Raven.
****
Raven had never been around Larissa’s place. Nor had she sat with Jonah Adams either, the local priest.
She hadn’t talked with them much. Larissa probably more than her father. They passed each other in the street, and there had been a few occasions at the diner when Raven was alone, and so was Larissa that they ate at the same table.
When it came to Jonah, other than being polite to him in the street, there was only one other time when Raven had stumbled into church.
It hadn’t been long since she’d been in Fort Clover. The anniversary of her mother’s death, she’d taken a seat in the back of the church and stared up at the large cross.
She hadn’t cried. Tears were for the weak, or at least, that was how she’d come to view them.
Now, sitting around the dinner table, Raven didn’t know what to say. She wore the clothes that Carlos had picked out for her, so she didn’t look like a biker chick. She wasn’t a businesswoman, nor did she look like a Stepford wife. She realized she looked like a mafia wife.
She hated the clothes.
Carlos had been training her for weeks. That son of a bitch. She fucking hated him. Despised him.
And what made it even worse was that she was also in love with him. But everything he’d done had been part of some plan to get her out of Fort Clover. To knock her up. Taking all of her choices away.
“So, Raven, it is lovely to have you here with us,” Jonah said.
“I can leave if you’d like.”
“Why would you leave?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t having me here against your … book or something?”
“Raven, please, there is nothing wrong with having you at my table,” Jonah said with a smile. “It is a pleasure. In fact, Larissa said you might need a place to stay and with it storming outside, we have a spare bedroom.”
“I don’t want to put you out. It’s fine. I will leave.”
She went to get up, but Jonah reached out and stopped her by sliding his fingers around her wrist. His grip was loose even though she got the sense that he had a great deal of strength within his body.
“It is a pleasure having you in my home, Raven. I make a mean brisket.”
“Larissa said,” Raven said, slowly lowering herself into her chair.
“We have a spare bedroom. It is no trouble.”
Raven looked at Jonah and felt tears spring to her eyes again. “Thank you.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. Do you remember what I said to you all those years ago?” Jonah asked.
She thought back to that day she sat in church, staring up at the large cross, hating herself, missing her mother, and wishing her life had turned out differently.
“You said if there was ever a time I needed your help, then all I had to do was ask.”
“Exactly.”
“Why?” Raven asked.
“Because you have to have faith, and I know there is always a plan.”
“You mean God’s plan?” Raven asked.
“Whichever plan you’d like,” Jonah said. “Or you could just see it that we have to have faith in each other in order to help this world be a much better place.”
Raven thought of Smokey and Carlos. Then she thought of herself. “I have no right to sit at this table.”
“Raven, please,” Larissa said.
“You’re good people, and I’m not. I’m a bad person.” She sniffled, hating that her throat burned from the tears.