Bare (Raw #2) (The Vault Series) Read online

  Bare

  Raw #2

  C. A. Harms

  Copyright © 2017 by C.A. Harms

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and other elements portrayed herein are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons or events is coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced storied in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form , or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

  Interior design and formatting by: Author C.A. Harms

  Love is being able to find the beauty in even the darkest of times.

  Contents

  Bare

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by C. A. Harms

  Prologue

  When you’re young you shouldn’t have to worry about things like if you’ll wake up tomorrow to find you’ve been once again kicked out onto the streets. You shouldn’t have to worry about how three people will share one can of chicken soup and four crackers without going hungry.

  A child’s life should be filled with hopes and dreams of a future without limits.

  I used to listen to my friends talk of cute boys on their favorite television show, or even the one that smiled at them in their fourth period gym class. It all seemed so foolish to me, because I was forced to grow up long before I should have.

  I was that girl that on most occasions had to take care of the one person that should have been taking care of me. My mother was worthless, not just because she chose drugs and men over her daughters, but because she honestly couldn’t even for a second see the wrong in her actions. It was always about her and her needs, or the needs of the many men she bedded over the years.

  She had no compassion for the children she’d bared, or anyone else for that matter. She was cold and callus—she took the dreams of her girls and made them into something we felt were for dreamers.

  There wasn’t that kind of love that shook one you to the core, but instead hate, a disappointment that left a feeling of emptiness inside. There wasn’t anyone I could rely on, but myself to hold true to my word. Trust was for fools.

  I’d lived my entire life feeling expendable, just a means for my mother to receive a little money each month that she would then turn around and waste instead of spending it on the things she should. Even the food allowance we received from the state was sold and money she’d receive was spent on drugs or alcohol.

  Those normal childhood fantasies and dreams were something I never got the chance to live. She’d shattered those, and then she proceeded to do the very same things to my sister Katelynn.

  On the day she left, and never returned, I was thankful. I was happy to be rid of her, because for once I felt free. I knew it’d be hard, but I vowed to do everything I could to do right by my sister. She deserved it, she deserved to just a kid.

  I thought I was smart, doing the right things, working to provide for Katelynn. I’d wake up everyday feeling overwhelmed, yet the moment I’d see her, it would become worth it. She was worth it.

  But we all have needs, we all have hungers, and when you’re faced with a moment of weakness, it’s hard to remain strong. That’s what Alec was to me, my moment of weakness. It should’ve been a moment of lust, and then over, but one time with him couldn’t possibly be enough.

  In the end, though I tried to avoid it, I was only left shattered all over again. Because I felt that for even a small window of time he showed me that he cared. I saw the man beneath the mask, and when I pushed for more, he disappeared.

  Right into the arms of another woman.

  Chapter 1

  Two Years Earlier

  Alec

  “Where’s Caden?”

  “Where do you think, Alec?” Mandy didn’t even turn around to face me, just continued to stare blankly at the television. “He’s in bed, where most one year olds are at nine o’clock at night.”

  I could already sense by her tone that she was gunning for a fight. It was almost a daily thing with us. She hated the hours I worked, but she didn’t mind spending the money I made.

  “I told you I had a meeting.” I set my briefcase down on the table and moved toward the bar in need of a drink. If I was going to have to listen to her nagging me, I needed a buzz.

  “Yeah,” she finally stands from the couch and moves across the room in my direction. “You always have a meeting or a project. You have someone to advise or someplace to be, but never is that someplace here with us.”

  I concentrate on the clear liquid that runs from the vodka bottle into my glass and try my best not to fire back. Loving Mandy was hard, it always had been. But the moment she told me she was pregnant I’d tolerate it all over and over, if it meant I had my beautiful son to come home to. Caden was my everything, and what I did, the corporation I was building, it was all for him. One day I wanted to be able to give my son the world, I wanted to ensure that no matter what, he had it all.

  I took in a deep breath and turned around to face her. Her long dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders, the thin night shirt she wore that hit mid thigh, her bare legs peeking out beneath. She was beautiful, but the anger inside her, that daily hatred for whatever it was that lingered deep within her, had changed her. It made her bitter, and I’ll admit, loving her had become more difficult.

  “I closed the deal on the Bower account tonight.” I lift the glass to my lips and take a sip, welcoming the sting of the vodka burning as it flows down my throat. She crosses her arms over her chest and gives me the look that I know too well, that ‘I don’t care what excuse you have’ look. “Do you know what this means for us?”

  “For you,” she corrects, “what this means for you, Alec.”

  “For us.” I place the glass onto the bar and step around it to bring my body closer to hers. “Everything I’m doing, all the hours and the hard work, it’s to ensure our future.”

  “I can’t do this anymore.” She lowers her arms and takes a step back. “I’m lonely, Alec.”

  My heart rate picks up, and suddenly I feel panicked at the idea of her leaving me. Not being able to come home each night, and though he may be sleeping, still being able to kiss my son goodnight.

  “I love you,” I tell her as I reach out to grip her shoulders and pull her close. “I’m sorry, but now that this is a done deal, I shouldn’t be gone as much. I promise.”

  “I need things to change.”

  I relax just a little when she lifts her hands and wraps them around my waist holding me, and in turn allowing me to hold her. “They will.” I release the breath I was holding s
lowly. “Let’s go in and check on our son, then we can go relax in the tub with a bottle of wine.”

  I feel her body shake against mine and that tension within me fades.

  “What?” I smile for the first time since I entered our condo.

  “One track mind,” she replies as she steps back. The smile on her face assures me that she is, in fact, okay with this track she speaks of. “If you weren’t so good at distracting me, I’d tell you to enjoy your wine alone.”

  “But?” I link my fingers with hers and tug only making her laugh. I love when she smiled and laughed in that carefree way. It reminded me of the woman I fell in love with, the one who used to be so supportive of me and my goals.

  “Like I said, you have this amazing way of distracting me.”

  Before I get the chance to say more she is tugging me along toward our son’s bedroom, and that tension from moments ago was long gone.

  I woke to the sound of Caden fussing in his room through the baby monitor on the side of our bed. It was more the sound he made when he was restless, and not necessarily when he is fully awake.

  When I feel Mandy moving around in bed at my side I reach out and feel her naked hip. “Let me go,” I offer with a gentle reassuring squeeze. “I missed putting him to bed tonight.”

  “Okay,” she whispered sleepily as she settles back under the sheets and pulls the comforter up around her.

  By the time I reach his bedroom the whining had stopped. Peeking over the side of his crib I grin when he looks up at me, a smile covering his lips. One of the best feelings I have ever felt in my life was when my son would reach out for me, much like he was in that very moment.

  “Come’ere, little man.” I lift him up gently, and almost instantly he lays his head upon my shoulder. Fuck if that gesture didn’t choke me up every time. “Let’s go watch some cartoons.”

  Caden’s little arm wraps securely around my neck and the other hand lifts to grip my finger as we move together toward the living room. I knew he’d just needed comfort as he was already falling back to sleep in my arms.

  Once I was on the couch, tucked beneath a blanket, I forgo the television and simply enjoy the moment. His small body takes in one deep breath after another, growing heavier against my chest as he falls back into a deep sleep. A sweet little snore fills the air making me smile when I think of how much it sounds just like Mandy when she is fast asleep.

  Things were rocky with her and they had been for some time, but I vowed in that moment to fix things. Not only for myself, but for our son. I had to. Because a life without him in it, was a life I couldn’t bear.

  Chapter 2

  Brynn

  “You’re eighteen.” I look across the table at the social worker with her pointy nose and wire rimmed glasses. She watches me closely, almost as if she’s waiting for me to break. “You’re young, and immature.” I feel myself grow agitated with her perception of me. “Much too young to be caring for a ten year old.”

  For a few passing seconds the room is filled with silence. I stare at her, and in turn she continues to stare at me, a smirk on her lips kind of like she thinks she’s got it all figured out.

  “Ms. Hastings,” I say her name leaning forward and placing my elbows onto the tabletop that separates us. Telling her that was almost nineteen would mean nothing. I was just a number, and in her eyes a number much too young to have the responsibility of raising Katelynn. I had to make her understand in other ways that my age has nothing to do with who I truly am. “When I was nine I got a job at a hair salon, I worked for tips alone, cleaning up hair clippings and refilling bottles. Each week I would take that little amount of money I’d make and buy what food I could to feed not only me, but my one year old sister.” I watch as her eyes narrow, and I don’t miss the way her throat bobs when she swallows hard.

  “I went to the library at school to do some research when I was ten, like most of the other kids would when we were assigned library time. The difference was, I was looking up how to potty train a child, when they were reading the latest Valley Girl books. I was the one that went home every day and picked up my sister from the dirty apartment downstairs where she’d spent the entire day with a woman not much better than our own mother. I was the one that worked with her day after day and celebrated her accomplishments.”

  I was well aware of the way Ms. Hastings’ eyes now seemed glossy as she sat across from me staring back at me while I continued on.

  “Do you know how many nights since then I went without eating, just so that I could assure Katelynn had something in her stomach? I started making bracelets when I was twelve and selling them to the kids at school, turning a very little profit yes, but do you know what that profit bought?” She shook her head. “It bought Katelynn medicine when she needed it, or a new pair of shoes when she’d outgrow the last. So when you say I’m only eighteen and I’m immature, let me just assure you that I’m far from that. Because from the moment that little girl was born, I was no longer a child. I was the adult that took care of her, I was the one that got up with her in the middle of the night and fed her. I was the one that sang to her so she would fall back to sleep, and I was the one that hid with her in the closets to ensure our safety when my mother brought home the wrong type of guy. That was all me.”

  The woman nods as she lifts her pen from the table.

  “But let it go noted that even though I lost my childhood, and I was forced to be the woman my own mother couldn’t be, not a day goes by that I regret the sacrifices I made to ensure Katelynn had the things she needed.” Again she stares back at me without speaking. “I love my sister, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. I have a place to live, I have a job, and the life I can give her is better than any she’ll have being passed around in the system. Because though we may not have everything, we have what matters, and that’s each other.”

  The kind of fear I felt while I waited to see if I’d be granted custody of my sister was a fear I’d never felt before. A deep ache, a terror that lingered almost as if I were hollow. I wasn’t sure what I would do if they took her away from me.

  Our mother was gone, but even when she was there it was only physically. Three weeks had passed and we’d still be doing just fine had some little bitch from the school not turned us in to the state. Now here we were, the fate of our future lying in the hands of this woman that still watches me closely. It was almost as if she felt if she watched me long enough I’d crack. What she didn’t understand was that I’d been playing grown up almost my entire life. The things I’ve seen and had happen to me were things she only had bad dreams about.

  “You’ll need to hold a job, be able to provide for Katelynn, and for yourself.” A sense of relief washes over me yet I do my best to show no signs of it. “There will be random visits to ensure that those things are being done. As well as a counselor, not only for Katelynn, but for yourself.”

  “I don’t need a counselor.”

  “That is not a suggestion,” Ms. Hastings narrows her eyes at me almost daring me to argue. “You may feel like you don’t need someone to talk to, but I’ve been doing this job a long time, and I can assure you that having that person to share those fears and angers eating away inside you is most definitely needed. You’re right, Brynn, you didn’t have a childhood, and you were forced to live the life of a mother much too young. There’s no doubt in my mind that you would do whatever you had to in order to provide for Katelynn, and that’s all great.” She pauses as she reaches out and places her hand over mine. “You can give her the love that no foster home could, but what good is that love if she’s forced to watch her older sister fall apart?”

  I hang my head, focusing on the darkened spot on the table. Like a space that had been burned or heated and now had risen and felt rough beneath my fingertips.

  “The counselor is a mandatory part of this temporary custody grant.”

  “Temporary.” Again my stomach felt tense, that tight ball of unease forming deep inside
me.

  “We will reevaluate after ninety days.” Again, this was not something I had any say so in.

  “We’re having pizza?” Katelynn looks up at me from where she sat on the living room floor eyeing the box in my hand. There I stood holding a pizza that had just been delivered to our front door, wearing a bright smile on my face.

  “Yes we are,” I say with a shrug, “do you not want pizza?”

  “I always want pizza.” She does, it’s true. “But we just usually can’t afford it.”

  It hurt, though, to hear her acknowledge that the smallest things like splurging on a pizza were things she and I couldn’t normally do.

  “We’re celebrating.” I say, hiding the sadness I felt, because that’s what I do. It’s what I always do, make her feel as if there isn’t a thing to worry about. “And I’ll have you know that I even have ice cream and brownies for desert.”

  Her smile grows wide.

  “Now pop in that movie you like so much and let’s eat this before it gets cold.” I place the box on the coffee table and it shifted just a little from the one wobbly leg it had. Sitting down next to it I wait for Katelynn to put in Dolphin Tale, a movie we’ve watched a million times but when your inventory is limited, it’s what you do.