Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4) (25 page)

A little flicker of apprehension crossed over her features. Something unsure. She lifted her arms to my shoulders and leaned forward to rest against me with her face buried in my neck. She didn’t talk, but she didn't deny it either. She felt it, too. She had to.

My arms came around her, sheltering her sudden vulnerability. Holding her close to my heart.

“It’s so much more,” I whispered again.

Late in the night, we lay curled up on the couch flipping through the channels. Having slept away much of the day, neither of us was overly tired. At the same time, though, neither of us had any desire to leave our haven, especially with the cold winter wind blowing around outside.

Raven needed some distraction, though. Something to pull her mind away from the upcoming funeral. I wanted her to feel at peace, even if only for a little while.

And I wanted to know her—not just her body, but more about
her
—while she felt like sharing. Raven wasn’t exactly an open book when it came to the things that made her tick. She had opened up to me more in the past few days than I had ever expected. I wanted to build on that. I wanted more from her.

She suddenly stopped flipping through the cable guide on the TV and sighed wistfully.

“I love this movie.”

“What is it?” I asked, unfamiliar with the gothic scene before me.

“You’ve never seen Dracula?” She looked completely shocked.

“Ummm…” I hedged.

“Bram Stocker’s Dracula… with Gary Oldman? Winona Ryder?”

“I was just a little kid when that movie came out.”

Raven laughed. “So was I. It’s timeless, though. I loved it.”

“I can’t believe your parents let you watch it.”

“They didn’t,” she giggled. “I had a babysitter who watched it once when I was supposed to be in bed.”

“Supposed to?”

“I was always a bit of a night owl, and I used to sneak downstairs whenever she babysat to see what she was watching.”

“Didn’t it scare the shit out of you?”

Raven’s jaw dropped. “It’s intensely romantic. It’s a beautiful love story.”

“It’s an old creeper who wants to suck her blood.”

“No, see, you just think that because you’ve never seen it. It’s incredible. The Count and Mina were married centuries ago, and she died. He cursed God, and God cursed him back by turning him into a vampire, but then he meets up with Mina’s soul again, and that connection is still there.”

I slanted a skeptical look at her.

“I always wanted to be Mina with her sad, dark eyes. To feel the love they shared.” Her own sad eyes suddenly looked far away, distant as she stared at the opening credits.

She suddenly embodied that lonely little girl she once was. Someone who only just wanted love for who she was, not who she was supposed to be. It spurred that nagging ache in my chest.

She started flipping through the menu again, but I put my hand over hers on the remote.

“Go back,” I said when she looked up at me. “Let’s watch it.”

“We don’t have to.”

“I want to, really,” I promised, then grinned. “And I’m not just saying that to get in your pants.”

This wrought a chuckle from her, and she even flushed just a tiny bit in the low light.

But she went back to the movie, and I got a little more insight into this girl I was starting to think of as mine. I watched her more than the movie, though. Her reactions were enthralling, and tears sparkled in her eyes at the pinnacle of the story.

Before it ended, though, her phone rang. This ringtone was different. The music was a bit foreboding.

Raven’s reaction to it set me on edge.

She pulled away to grab her phone and looked at the display, swallowing hard with a deep-knit frown.

“Rave?” I asked cautiously as I paused the movie.

“It's my dad,” she whispered.

The ominous ringtone continued, cut off abruptly, only to start again seconds later.

“I don't want to talk to him.” Her voice sounded hollow.

I reach forward and brushed my thumb along her cheek. “Maybe it will be good to talk to him. He might be trying to make amends.”

Raven only shook her head. “You don't know my father.”

Once again, the tone cut out and began again immediately.

“I’m right here, Rave,” I promised, and she looked up at me. I reached out and touched the screen to accept the call, quickly setting it to speaker.

She kept her eyes locked with mine, almost as though she needed that faint connection to give her strength. “Hello?” she finally said, holding the phone between us.

“I heard from Joe,” the voice through the phone said. Cold and mechanical. Remote and unfeeling. “I'm sorry about your mother.”

A faint flash in Raven's eyes made me wonder if the man had ever been remotely kind to her. She seemed almost bewildered by his polite sentiment. “Thank you,” she finally said.

“Do you need money?”

Her frown returned, riddled with confusion. “Money?”

“To help with the funeral.”

“Are you coming?” she asked, taken aback.

“Why would I?”

Raven drew back from the phone as though it was a snake. “Because at one time she was your
wife
,” she retorted. “She was the mother of your children.”

“Don't get all dramatic now,” her dad sighed. “You know that was all over long ago, and there are things going on at work I can't get away from.”

What a dick.

I opened my mouth, not entirely sure what I was going to say, but Raven quickly placed her fingertips over my lips with a shake of her head.

She released a shaky breath, and asked in a tremulous voice. “How about Alessandria? Is she coming?”

“I actually encouraged her to, as did Kevin,” he replied.

“Kevin?” I mouthed.

“Her husband,” she whispered back to me.

“She says she can't forgive her,” Raven’s dad continued.

“Of course she can’t,” Raven scoffed.

“You weren't there, Ravenna,” he sternly shot back. “Alessandria had to deal with the ridicule and the shame of what your mother did.”

“Jesus, Dad,” Raven she gasped, “you act like you had nothing to do with it. She was upset because of
you
, so upset that she cracked.”

“Why are you taking her side? She never stood up for you.”

I jerked Raven’s hand from my mouth. “Oh my God, you are an asshole,” I scowled. “You realize her mother just
died
, and you’re trying to pick a fight.”

“Who the hell are you? Who is that, Ravenna?”

“I'm someone who is telling you what a fucker you are. You should be protecting her from jackasses like you. The last thing she needs right now is your shit.”

“Now wait just one minute—”

“No,” I interrupted. “If you want to help, call back tomorrow and apologize. Actually help. If you don’t, leave Raven the fuck alone.”

He started saying something else, but I abruptly ended the call. Then I sheepishly met Raven’s eyes, wondering if I’d overstepped my bounds.

She was looking at me with a hint of wonder. Her lips had fallen open slightly and her eyes were wide.

“Sorry,” I said with a wry twist to my mouth. “I hope I didn’t make things worse, but I don’t do well when people start talking to you like—”

She cut me off with a kiss. Sweet and firm with her hands cradling my jaw as she rose up on her knees. When she drew back, there was a strong glimmer of emotion in her eyes.

“I don’t know if anyone has ever talked to him like that before,” she whispered, “but I guarantee nobody has ever done it on my behalf. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Rave,” I replied, and pulled her up against my chest.

We lay like that for a while, in the quiet of the night. Eventually, Raven reached out to start the movie back up, and we finished it as I held her.

Long after the movie ended, long after we went to her bed and lay in the darkness, I lay awake as she drifted off to sleep in my protective embrace.

Joe had arranged for a small service at the funeral home in Anaconda on Thursday, allowing enough time to have Margot cremated.

Truthfully, it was likely for the best that Raven’s dad and sister didn’t show up. Raven didn’t need their shit. I pretty much just felt like clocking her dad right between the eyes for being such a complete fucker. I also had a deep-set desire to knock her sister off her perfect little pedestal. To make her sorry for every shitty thing she’d ever done and said to make Raven feel inadequate.

A few friends of the family attended, people who had known Margot long ago when she was young. Lacey drove over from Billings.

And the guys came with their wives and girlfriends. When I had called Justin to check in and let him know I was still alive, I told him what had happened. He shared with the others, and they completely took my Raven under their wings. They allowed her to grieve in her own quiet way, finding little ways to help as life went on around her. Even Justin managed to show some compassion, which kind of surprised the lot of us. We’d never seen him so…
serious
.

Through it all, I was right beside her. Holding her and giving her a shoulder to lean on. I stayed with her over those days surrounding the funeral. Sometimes I made slow, sweet love to her. I distracted her with sex like she’d done for me. I took her out of her head and gave her another focus.

Other times I just held her. I cherished her. I caught her when she fell apart, mourning the loss of her mother. The woman had done nothing for Raven over the years, but, as Raven had said that first day at Warm Springs, was still her mother.

“She used to dress us alike,” she mused late one night, “like in the same style of dress, but different shades. My sister, always in a light color—pink, lavender, baby blue. She'd put me in a darker shade—dark red like cranberries… deep purple or midnight blue that was almost black. I remember people remarking how clever she was, playing on our differences. The light and the dark.”

“The yin and the yang,” I added, trailing my fingers down her hip.

“Exactly,” she murmured sadly with the slightest hint of old bitterness creeping into her voice. “Her methods of garnering attention sorta had undesirable results, though. Alessandria was an angel, fair and sweet in appearance. Innocent. Perfect.” She caught her lower lip in her teeth, toying with her spider bite lip piercing as melancholy filled her eyes. “I was the flip side of the coin, dark and mischievous… a troublemaker. It started with a comment, then another. The idea that I was the bad seed took root and grew until I was the go-to scapegoat. If Alessandria did something wrong, she blamed me… as did most everyone else. She was so lovely. Even when we were little, all the kids wanted to be her friend. Getting me into trouble was one way to do it.”

“And nobody took your side?”

She shook her head. “Not even me.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I never stood up for myself. I never denied the accusations. I just shouldered the blame… every time.”