Free Clifford Arbor: The Seduction of Raven Peters by Sam Crescent Page A

them and right now she had the opportunity to get some answers.
    "I’m thirty-three. You?"
    "Twenty-eight. What about Harley?"
    "He’s the same age as me. We were best friends growing up. He’s an amazing man." She could hear the love he felt for Harley.
    "You love him."
    "Yes. I do. He’s been there for me when I needed him." Jackson stopped and stared intently out the window.
    "What other family do you have?" Raven asked, looking out once more at the ocean.
    "No one. I had a brother but he...he passed on." Jackson ran his fingers through his hair.
    "I’m so sorry. My parents died some time ago. They had me later in life and so I was expecting it. I miss them but they made me accept that they’d be gone long before me and helped me be independent trying to get me ready for life." Raven reached over to touch his arm, offering him comfort, letting him know she’d dealt with the loss of a family member, a loved one, and she knew what he was going through to a certain extent.
    "It’s hard," he agreed.
    "What about Harley? Does he have any family?"
    Jackson laughed.
    "What?"
    "Harley has a huge family. They no longer live in Clifford Arbor which is why you haven’t met them yet. They moved out several years ago. He has two sisters. Tina who now lives in America, she’s married with three kids. Catherine moved to the city to try and make it in her own design firm. Then he has three other brothers. John who lives in Australia with a wife and finally Daniel and David who live in the country with his parents. I think they're trying to set up their own farm. They're the twins of the family. Unexpected and the youngest of the bunch," Jackson informed her, laughing animatedly. He finished off laughing at a memory of the two youngest Banks brothers.
    "Wow. Sounds like an amazing family."
    "They really absorb you into the fold. I feel like a member of their family. You’ll probably meet them at Christmas. They come back up and decorate their old house."
    Raven was warmed by hearing about Harley and his huge family. It explained his openness.
    He always had someone around him. She smiled.
    "Have you ever been married?" Raven asked. She’d almost gotten married in Italy to an artist and a drunk, but came to her senses in enough time and fled back to England stil wearing the white dress.
    "Once." The one word came out in a growl of disgust, Jackson’s fingers tightening around the steering wheel turning his knuckles white. His entire body went tense.
    "I take it marriage was not a good decision?" Raven asked tentatively.
    "The worst decision of my life."
    Raven waited uncomfortable with the heavy silence that fell between them before he continued.
    "Her name is Patricia. I went for a trip to Vegas, ended up blind drunk and married to the devil in human female form." Jackson stopped talking momentarily, watching the road. "I got back to England and discovered I’d married the woman who was going to destroy my life and end the life of my younger brother, Tyler."
    Raven gasped in horror. His wife was responsible for the death of his brother?
    "Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Jackson. Is she in prison?"
    Was he stil married to her?
    He laughed, a mocking sound piercing to Raven’s ears. "That’s the worst part, she was nowhere near him. She convinced him she was in love with him and I was hurting her someway. I wasn’t. Wouldn’t go near the bitch, but he thought I was. Anyway, I don’t know exactly what went on that night but I know he ended up blind drunk, drugged on anything he could get his hands on and drove himself round a tree."
    Raven could hear the blind anger.
    "Patricia appeared two days later, wanting money and not a care in the world that she’d somehow caused the death of the man who loved her. I divorced her on the grounds of adultery."
    Raven glanced around the town as they made their way into Clifford Arbor. It was stil early and she could see the shop keepers opening doors. The coffee shop already had steam coming