Lingerie Wars (The Invertary books) (34 page)

Lake looked at his naive sister, with her trusting smile, and his heart sank.

"It can wait," he told her.

At this rate, he would never tell her. Betty frowned. She did not approve.

"No," Rainne said. "This isn't the first time that you've said that to me. You obviously have something to tell me."

He glanced at his parents. His mother's eyes had narrowed as she took her position against the enemy—him. His father looked like he was doing calculus in his head. As far as Lake could see the man might as well have stayed in the bus.

"I'll tell you another time," he said.

This wasn't a conversation for his parents.

"No." Rainne took a step towards him. "Tell me now."

Her eyes had darkened. She was picking up on his signals with that uncanny intuition of hers. She knew he was hiding something.

"Let's go through to the back room," he said at last.

"Here," Rainne said, being stubborn for the first time in months. "These are our parents—surely we can talk in front of them?"

Maybe you can
, Lake thought.

"Fine," he said. There was no getting out of it. He took a deep breath, but made sure no one saw him do it. "I'm putting the shop up for sale on Monday."

The colour drained out of Rainne's face, which made her multi-coloured hair all the more luminous. His mother smirked. As far as she was concerned, Lake had handed Rainne back to her family.

"You're what?" Rainne's voice was barely a whisper.

Lake ran a hand over his hair.

"I have an army mate with a security business. He's looking for a partner. I need the money to buy into the business."

Rainne's mouth opened and closed for a moment.

"I thought you were getting the place up and running for me," she said.

Lake felt on about the same level as muck on the bottom of a shoe.

"I gave you six months, Rainne. The business went from bad to worse in that time."

"But...I had plans!"

"That's all you had." He tried to keep his voice soft and non-threatening. "I should have helped you out in the beginning. You really didn't have a clue what you were doing."

"You mean I wasn't doing it your way?" The tears started to pool in her eyes. "Just because I wasn't doing it your way, doesn't mean I wasn't doing it."

"You weren't making any money," he said.

"Money!" Her cheeks burned red. "That's all you care about."

"I told you," said his mother. Her eyes flashed with smug superiority.

Lake shot her a steely glare.

"Business is about money," he told Rainne. "You can't implement any new ideas unless you have money to back them. That's why things need to run properly first. I thought you understood that now?"

"It doesn't matter what I understand now, does it?" Rainne rubbed the tears off her cheek. "Because you aren't doing this for me, you're doing it for you."

"Look," Lake said. "I'm sorry that I don't have so much money that I can finance a business for you at the same time as sorting out what I'm going to do with my life. I have a set amount of funds. If you wanted to run an experiment, why didn't you ask dad to dip into his trust fund?"

"Huh?" said his father as he came back to the planet.

"I did ask them," Rainne said. "They didn't want me to do it."

"That's not true," his mother said, stepping towards Rainne. "We wanted you to have a better sense of the purpose of the shop. Selling knickers wasn't enough. Not for you. You're meant for so much more. We always support you, you know that."

Lake had heard enough.

"Is that right?" It was time to call his mother's bluff. "Well, the shop is for sale. Do you want to buy it so that Rainne can get on with her earth-friendly plans?"

Rainne looked at her mother so hopefully that it almost tore Lake to pieces. Even after all these years she couldn't see them for who they were—users. His mother's lips tightened.

"Of course, we can talk about it," she said.

She was going to sidestep the whole thing.

"No. You need to tell me now. Do you want to buy it or not? If not, I put it on the market Monday. This is your only chance. How badly, exactly, do you want to support Rainne?"

There was a tense silence. Betty's frown was so deep you couldn't see her eyes. His mother looked cornered. For one hopeful moment Lake thought she might step in and do something for her kids instead of expecting them to do everything for her.

"All our money is tied up," she said at last. "It wouldn't be possible to sort things out that fast."

"I can wait until the new year," Lake said.

He knew he was pushing at Rainne's expense, but just once, he wanted her to see them for who they were. Maybe then she would be able to let go and be herself. His parents shared a look.

"Not possible," his father said at last, and all the hope went out of Rainne's eyes.

"Do you mean it isn't possible," Lake asked him, "or that you don't want to do it?"

"I have better things to do with my money than to buy a shop like this," his father said in disgust.

The words were a slap. Lake took a step towards Rainne, meaning to comfort. She held up her hands to stop him.

"I guess I know where I stand," she said at last.

Tears poured down her face.

"You stand on your own two feet, lassie," Betty told her.

Rainne nodded.

"You lot." She motioned to her family. All of them, Lake included. "You only want me around to do what you want. You aren't interested in helping me."

"That's not true," Lake said.

She gave him a cold look.

"I've had enough of all of you," she said.

Slowly, she turned and walked out of the shop. Lake took a step to follow her, but Betty put her hand on his arm to stop him. She shook her head slightly. Lake knew she was right. Rainne needed to deal with this her own way. But he hated that. He clenched his fists.

"Well," his mother said snidely, "looks like your attempt to convert Rainne to your capitalist ways has failed."

Lake stared at them for a moment. The parents who weren't parents. The family he didn't have.

"It's time for you to leave," he said.

"Yes," his father said, completely unaffected by the emotion around him. "Let's go get Rainne and get out of here."

"No." Lake broke free from Betty's touch. "Leave Rainne alone. Go to your bus and leave Invertary, or you won't like the consequences."

His mother's eyebrows shot up.

"Are you threatening us?" she said with shock.

"Yes. If you don't leave, right now, all that government training you despise so much will rain down on you like a thunderstorm. That's a promise."

His parents went white.

"You are dead to us," his father said.

Lake nodded. He'd always suspected as much. He watched as they turned on their heels and scuttled from the shop. Lake hoped they did as he told them. He wasn't sure what he would do if they didn't. It scared him to think what he could be capable of.

Betty came to stand beside him. Her mouth was pinched.

"Don't worry, son," she said firmly. "You still have me."

Rainne had stopped crying by the time she'd reached Alastair's house. She felt numb from the betrayal of her family. Both sides were telling her that the other side was selfish and wanted to use her, when in reality, that's all they both wanted. They were as bad as each other. So she fled to the only place in Invertary where she felt safe, to the only person who wanted her for her—and not for what she could do for him.

Alastair opened the door with a look of bewilderment.

"The show's in an hour, Rainne," he said. "What are you doing here?"

She looked up at her beautiful boy with her tear-reddened eyes.

"Oh," he said with comprehension.

He stepped towards her and wrapped her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head and cooed to her, but Rainne was beyond tears. This wasn't the kind of comfort she sought.

"Come on." He held her hand and led her up the stairs to his room.

Once the door was shut behind them, he smiled at her. His face so full of love and acceptance that it almost undid her.

"Aren't we going to the show?" he asked.

Rainne shook her head. They stood in the middle of his bedroom. Rainne was cold from the run to his house, her coat was still back at the shop.

"You want to talk about it?" he said.

Rainne shook her head again. Alastair glanced around the room as his mind flicked through the things he should be asking, or doing, in his current situation. It was clear that he wasn't sure what to do with her.

"What do you want to do?" he asked at last.

Rainne stepped in to him, stood on her toes and kissed him. She put her whole soul into the kiss. She wrapped her arms around his shoulder, plunged her fingers into his hair and kissed him until the breath left him and he became the only thought in her mind.

"Rainne," he said, his voice hoarse from wanting her. "What are we doing?"

She still couldn't trust herself to speak. She was sure that if she started the whole horrible story of her pathetic life would tumble out of her mouth. She was sick hearing herself, sick thinking about all of it. She was sick of everything. So instead, she unbuttoned the straps on her purple dungarees and let the bib fall to her waist.

Alastair's eyes went wide. Rainne bent over, pulled at the bows on her Doc Marten boots and kicked them off. She finished unbuttoning her dungarees and let them fall to her feet, where she calmly stepped out of them.

"Rainne," Alastair said. "You're upset, this isn't the best time. You're not thinking straight."

She gave him a look.

"I mean," he stumbled over his words for a change. "I mean I want to. But you don't know what you're doing right now."

Rainne raised an eyebrow in challenge to that, then pulled her
Wombles
T-shirt over her head. Alastair gulped. Rainne was standing in front of him, in her underwear and thanks to the shop, it was a lovely matching pink set. But she didn't want to think about the shop. She wanted to think about Alastair. Slowly, she turned her back to him, lifted her hair and waited for him to unclasp her bra. She could have done it herself, but it was time for him to get involved. There was a long pause, for a second she wasn't sure if he was going to give her what she wanted and then she felt his gentle touch on her skin. There was a snap and her bra fell loosely. She shook it off and let her hair fall.

Slowly, she turned towards Alastair and watched him gasp. She just stood there, waiting as his eyes ate her up. At last, he looked at her face. Rainne nodded once. He smiled softly. And then he pulled his jumper up over his head. His T-shirt and jeans disappeared faster than she could blink. Alastair grinned slowly, the confidence she knew and loved shining from his eyes.

"Come on, Rainne," he said as he held out his hand. "I've been dreaming about getting you into bed. I don't want to waste a minute."

And with a smile, Rainne followed her boy.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

There was a party atmosphere in Invertary's high street. The place was packed with people browsing through the stalls, eating snacks from the street vendors and listening to the assorted entertainment dotted along the street. Outside Kirsty's shop the church choir were dressed like characters from a Dickens novel. They held sheet music and little glasses with candles in them. For a moment Kirsty listened to a beautiful rendition of
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
, then turned her attention to the girls manning the church stall. The Donaldson twins lost their smiles when they spotted Kirsty.

"You really screwed up this time," she said.

"We know," Megan said.

They both hung their heads.

"Is this part of your brother's punishment?" Kirsty gestured to the table in front of them.

"If we can raise five thousand pounds for the church roof, he'll stop our home detention," Claire said glumly. "Five thousand pounds! And he isn't even including the money the carol singers rake in. We spent hours preparing the dough and now we have to stand here getting smelly from the oil. Surely, that should be punishment enough?"

“Be careful with that hot oil,” Kirsty told them.

She wasn’t sure she would have left the twins in charge of something flammable.

“Don’t worry Kirsty,” Megan said. “We have it under control. We even borrowed Mum’s juice cooler to keep the dirty oil in.”

Kirsty eyed the large white plastic barrel beside the table.

“And how will you clean the oil out so that your mum can use it for drinks again?”

The twins exchanged a look. They hadn’t thought of that.

Kirsty tried not to smile.

"It’s not fair.” Megan said. “Everyone else gets to have fun and we have to make doughnuts. We’ll never get that greasy smell out of our hair.”