Free The Bride Star by Tracey Jane Jackson Page B

I’ll never hear them again, Rayne.” Victoria swept her arm in front of her. “Look where we are.”
    “Right. Well, I’m still going to keep my opinion to myself. I’d like you to have your fantasies.”
    “Fine.” Victoria grinned and then focused on something in front of them. “Did you really run away when you were younger?”
    “Yes,” Rayne said quietly.
    “I don’t mean to pry.” Victoria lowered her head. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
    “No, it’s fine. It’s not like it was a secret. I was seventeen and my mom was drinking really heavily. Dad moved to New York with his fifth secretary/lover when I was fifteen. Mom moved us to San Jose in California and had yet another boyfriend who seemed to think he got two for the price of one, you know?”
    Victoria grimaced. “That’s awful.”
    “I got on my old Triumph with fifty bucks and a change of clothes in a backpack. I had no idea where I was going. I made it up to Portland and freaked out. I called Shaye, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t return home and had nowhere to go.”
    “Couldn’t you stay with Shaye?”
    Rayne laughed. “At the time, I didn’t feel I could. Her parents are these super religious people who I felt would never accept me.”
    “Did they say that?”
    Sidestepping a large pile of horse excrement, Rayne wrinkled her nose. “No, but Shaye has a pretty weird relationship with her mother.”
    “In what way?”
    “Well, let’s see. Shaye’s perfect, and somehow that’s not good enough.”
    “Perfect, really?” Victoria smiled.
    Rayne laughed. “She’s drop-dead beautiful, sweet, and a very good Christian, but somehow that just doesn’t seem enough for her mom.”
    Victoria gave a mock shudder. “Shaye sounds like a rebel.”
    “I know, right? The thing is, she’s friends with people like me, rather than the Christians her mother thinks she should be friends with, so they butt heads a lot.”
    Victoria nodded. “I can relate to that.”
    “Her mom’s a really nice woman, but kind of judgmental, although she says she isn’t and really believes she isn’t. Does that make sense?”
    “Totally!”
    “Shaye gets caught in the middle sometimes. You should have seen the blow-up a few years ago when she got involved with the Muskogee Indians. Her mom absolutely flipped her lid. I can’t remember how it all happened, but now Shaye volunteers a few times a year at their headquarters.”
    “Are they in Seattle?”
    Rayne shook her head. “No. Oklahoma. Shaye flies to them, at her own expense. At first her mother said she couldn’t go, but Shaye has her trust fund from her grandmother, so her mom couldn’t really stop her, since she’s over eighteen, but they were barely civil for several months.”
    Briefly interrupting their conversation, Victoria waved to someone and then turned back to Rayne. “Did they work it out?”
    Rayne nodded. “Yes, but there’s always something else that comes up. In the end, Shaye moved up from Cali and in with me. Their relationship seems to work better with the distance.”
    “Mothers are like that.” Victoria smiled.
    Rayne wouldn’t know. Her mother was too self-involved to care about what Rayne was doing day-to-day. As long as she had money, she left Rayne alone.
    Rayne and Victoria arrived back at the townhouse to find a horse tethered outside.
    “Whose horse is this?” Victoria wondered aloud.
    “You don’t recognize it?”
    Victoria shook her head and Rayne followed her through the front door and into the parlor.
    A tall blonde woman stood in the parlor, and her mouth dropped open when they walked into the room. “No way!” She sat down quickly.
    Rayne raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”
    Emma stood and then sat down again. “I am like a huge fan!”
    Rayne smiled. “Oh. Thanks.”
    Victoria removed her gloves and grinned. “Rayne, this is Emma Madden. Emma, Rayne Green.”
    Emma snorted. “Yeah, like I didn’t know that.”