Page 20 of Rainshadow

Flora smiled at him, shrugged, then dug into a very well-prepared chicken breast with roasted vegetables and a creamy sauce.

“Sylvia, you’re not eating,” Ethan said.

“I’m not hungry,” Sylvia said, pushing the plate away.

“Please, Sylvia, stop punishing me for… for what? Being nice?”

She glared at him.

“You know what. I’m going to bed.”

“Come now, Sylvia,” he said, standing, as she swept from the room. Her black satin dress billowed dramatically around her lithe body.

When she was gone, Ethan sat down again. “Finish up,” he said, weary and defeated. “I’ll drive you home.”

“I’m sorry,” Flora said. “I really don’t want to cause problems.”

“I don’t think she could live without you,” Ethan said. “There’s no one else who will work here. I’m trying to save her.”

“Why does she hate me?”

Ethan shrugged, shook his head, closed his eyes, and put his face in his hands. “The oldest reason in the world,” he said. “You’re beautiful, young, and you have your whole life ahead of you.” He sighed. “We have been chasing her happiness since the day I met her. Cutting out my friends, my family. Buying an apartment in Paris, a château in Vienna…”

“Sounds… expensive.”

“Oh,” Ethan said. “I have a substantial trust, money is not…” He shook his head. “We don’t worry about money. But I would give every penny to make her happy. She seemed so sad when I met her. Lost. She wanted one thing—to train and ride beautiful horses, but it’s a hard world for the penniless. I thought if I could only make her happy, that could be my whole purpose in life. When she wanted to return to the states, we looked all over at fine, state-of-the-art equestrian estates, good enough for her, for her precious horses.”

“Why here? This island?”

“It’s far up north and I need long nights. I’m a night owl.”

“The night is long here,” Flora said, gazing into his hypnotic eyes. No wonder he was so beautifully pale.

He was so perfect, she thought, unlike any man she had ever, would ever meet on the island. She once again reflected on the unfairness that Sylvia should have the opportunity for thingsliked going to Oxford, where she would meet a man like this. It was all so achingly unfair.

For a moment, they looked at each other, and it felt to Flora like he was asking her for something. To see him, perhaps, the way Sylvia never had. To see his needs, so long ignored, to see his pain. He looked into her eyes and let her see it, to see all of him.

“I should get you home,” he said, interrupting their moment.

“Yeah, probably,” she whispered, setting down her empty glass of wine.

They barely spoke on the ride home, but Ethan let his hand rest in the center, next to the stick shift, and Flora could swear it inched closer and closer to her leg. Or, maybe, she was letting her thigh slide over, right until they just about touched, though neither looked at the other, and the only sound in the car was Flora’s breathing.

After that night, Sylvia refused to speak to Flora, and had not let her back on a horse. She had, it seemed, strengthened enough to get back into the saddle herself, and Flora caught glimpses of her trotting and cantering around her arena on Bane’s back. The only thing she said to her was, “It’s time for you to go,” uttered the minute the sun shimmered over the tops of the fir trees, beginning its descent into the darkness.

“You shouldn’t walk home alone at night,” her mother said to her, upon her return one evening.

“Since when have you ever cared?” she snarled, hating her mother.

“A man was found dead. A server from that restaurant, Deer Harbor.”

Flora blinked. Whatever she had expected her mother to say, it wasn’t that.

“Behind the restaurant, hidden in an unused freezer. He didn’t come to work on Saturday, but they didn’t find him until yesterday.”

She had gone with Ethan to the restaurant on Friday. She might have been one of the last people to see the man alive. She had no emotion at the thought. It didn’t seem meaningful. Still, it was strange.

“I’m sure he got into a fight or something,” Flora said. “Something personal.”

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