Tomorrow's Lies (Promises #1)

  Judge Me Not series

  I Stand Before You

  Never Doubt Me

  Just Let Me Love You

  Inevitability duology

  Inevitable Detour

  Inevitable Circumstances

  A Harbour Falls Mystery trilogy

  Harbour Falls

  Willow Point

  Wickingham Way

  Laid Bare novella series

  Exposed: Laid Bare 1

  Unveiled: Laid Bare 2

  Spellbound: Laid Bare 3

  When today's promises become tomorrow's lies, how can you believe in anything . . . or anyone?

  Jaynie Cumberland has no idea how to trust again, so she’s given up on trying. Dumped in to the state foster care system at age fourteen, Jaynie spent three years treading water, just trying to get by.

  Still, Jaynie always knew she was broken in some way. After all, why did her own mother abandon her? And following a harrowing experience at her first foster home, Jaynie’s worst fears are confirmed, leaving her feeling worthless and shattered.

  Now Jaynie counts the days till she turns eighteen and can go out on her own. All she wants is to be free of everyone and everything. But before that can happen, she must make it through the next few months at one final foster home. There Jaynie meets a gorgeous, albeit rough-around-the-edges, boy who is dealing with the repercussions of his own turbulent past.

  Flynn O'Neill is immediately taken with this new, fragile girl. He becomes determined to show Jaynie there is more to life than hurt and pain. Unfortunately, this new home they live in, one that promised to be a haven for unwanted kids, is more like a living hell.

  So what do you do when you’re trapped and there’s no way out?

  What if you fall in love and protecting the other person becomes the most important thing in your life?

  What if something unthinkable happens, testing your love, and the stakes are raised higher than ever? Will you come out unscathed? Can today’s promises be kept? Or will they simply become more of tomorrow’s lies?

  Tomorrow’s Lies is a beautiful story of an all-consuming love and broken people building a family out of nothing. It's about never giving up, even in the face of adversity.

  Thank you for taking this journey with me. Flynn and Jaynie’s story is fictional, but there are all too many real stories of abuse in the foster care system. Thank you to those individuals I spoke with, who shared their own experiences so readily. This story is for you and for all the children who have no voice.

  Jaynie

  (Present Day ~ October)

  “Jump,” Flynn says.

  I stare down at the swiftly moving river. “I can’t, I can’t,” I cry.

  “You have to, Jaynie.”

  From where we stand, on the edge of a cliff made of sandstone streaked with iron and copper, the water, black as night, scares me. Ink swirling in a bottomless well and I’m supposed to jump in?

  I toss a glance back to the forest, and Flynn sighs. He knows what I’m thinking. “There’s no going back, Jaynie,” he says softly. “The only choice now is to move forward.”

  The cliff, the water, jumping in. He is right. Still… “I’m scared,” I confess.

  Flynn blows out a breath. “I know, sweetheart.”

  Soft, understanding, Flynn always gets me.

  Regrets, the likes of which I’ve never known, wash over me, and I want nothing more than to turn back the hands of time and start this day over. The girl I was this morning, she is no more. That frightens me. Scarier still is who I may become if I leave Flynn. A lump forms in my throat at the thought.

  “I changed my mind,” I declare, shaking my head. “We shouldn’t separate, Flynn.” I tug on his arm, urging him to retreat with me as I take two steps away from the edge.

  It’s a move born of desperation, a last ditch attempt to pretend we’re not in the situation we’re in. But my delusion is short-lived. Flynn’s expression tells me all I need to know. Going back, at least for me, is no longer an option.

  “What if I never see you again?” I whisper.

  “You’ll see me soon enough.” He doesn’t sound so certain, and that scares the hell out of me.

  “I’m out of here,” I say.

  When I start to walk away, Flynn grabs my arm. “Where do you plan to go, Jaynie?”

  “With you, of course. Back to the house.”

  His grip tightens. “Uh, I don’t think so.”

  He’s right, but still, I try to slip away. My resistance is futile. One tug and Flynn has me snuggled in close to him. “Flynn…”

  This is good, this is home, and I can’t help but relax against him. I’d like to stay this way all night, my back pressed to Flynn’s firm chest, my heart brimming full with his love.

  Leaning down to whisper in my ear, Flynn gently nudges me back to reality when he says, “No changing the plan. You’re leaving this place, today, now. This is me, Jaynie, making sure you’re never in danger again.”

  And that’s it for me. My walls crumble and I start to cry. “Please, no. Don’t make me go. I don’t think I’ll make it without you.”

  Flynn’s warm breaths, soft caresses on the back of my neck, send shivers down my spine, especially when he chants my name, like a prayer. “Jaynie, Jaynie.” And then, “You’re stronger than you think. You can do anything you put your mind to.”

  I let out a derisive snort. “You believe in me way too much, Flynn.”

  “Nah, you don’t believe in yourself enough. You never have, babe. You keep forgetting who you were when you first got here.”

  “I remember.” How could I forget?

  “Then you know how far you’ve come.”

  “Until tonight, Flynn. Tonight I screwed everything up.” My voice cracks as I continue. “I failed myself. I couldn’t hold it together, and I ended up failing us.”

  “Shh…” He walks me forward till we’re back at the cliff’s edge.

  “The abyss,” I murmur, looking down. Still inky, still black, still scary as hell. “You can’t make me jump into that nothingness, Flynn.”

  “No, I can’t make you. But you will jump.”

  I let out a scoffing noise, and press back into him.

  His hands tightening at my waist, he says, “You want to know why I’m so sure you’ll go?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because, Jaynie.” I feel his chin against my head as he nods to the water. “It’s not ‘nothingness’ down there. That river is your way out.”

  I almost jump, right there and then, but panic overcomes me. I spin away from Flynn’s grasp and come dangerously close to falling over the edge in the process. “Jaynie, Jesus,” I hear Flynn say.

  Shaken up, I move away from him, insisting the whole while, “I’m good, I’m good.”

  Yeah, right. I’m not anywhere near being okay.

  As I back farther away from the cliff’s edge, my heels digging into the soft earth, I try reasoning. With myself, with Flynn, I don’t know. I guess with us both.

  “I don’t think I can go, Flynn. I really don’t think I can.”

  He sighs, and I can tell he’s gearing up to get me back to where I was. “Jaynie, come on.”

  Dirt cooled by the shortened days of fall squishes up between my toes, reminding me how rushed we were tonight. Suddenly, I have the most brilliant idea.

  With a flourish of my hands, gesturing to my bare feet, I say as evenly as I can, “I forgot to put on my shoes before we left. I can’t go without shoes, Flynn.”

  Flynn steps toward me, carefully, the way someone might approach a spooked animal.

  “Shoes would just weigh you down, Jaynie. Better you left them behind. Swimming will actually be a whole lot
easier this way.”

  I shake my head, the gravity of the situation we’re in fully catching up to me. “I don’t know, Flynn.” I cover my face with my hands. “I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  But I do. The problem is I know too much. And that’s what’s killing me. This is the end—the end of my time with Flynn in this place, the end of easy smiles on warm summer days, the end of the family I cobbled together. But hardest of all to accept is this is the end of Flynn loving me. No one has ever loved me the way he has.

  My heart breaks and I can almost see the shards of what’s left of me falling away in the darkness.

  “How can you let me go?” I sob.

  Flynn yanks me to him, and I struggle to break free. But in the end, he wins. Holding me to him tightly, he buries his face against my neck.

  Suddenly, I am angrier with him than I’ve ever been in the past. I try to shove him away—to no avail.

  “How can you let us go?” I want to know, breathless and panting.

  When he doesn’t reply, I try to step back so he’ll have no choice but to look me in the eye.

  Flynn is far stronger, though, and easily holds me in place. “Please…just…stop,” he whispers, voice cracking.

  I stop struggling. This is hard on Flynn, too.

  He squeezes my hip gently. “Be strong for both of us,” he whispers. “The past is behind you. Your future is away from here.” He finally lifts his head, eyes glistening with unshed tears as he nods to the river. “This is your chance to get away from all this bad.”

  But it’s also me getting away from all that was good, I long to say. Instead, I simply ask, “What about you?”

  “I told you before I’ll be fine. I always am.”

  “I love you, Flynn.”

  A whir of wind kicks up and I fear my words are lost. Flynn hears me, as he always does. “I love you, too,” he replies.

  Sliding his hands up from my hips—carefully, so as to avoid the areas where I’ve been bruised—he murmurs wistfully, “You always look so beautiful in this dress.”

  “Even tonight?”

  “Especially tonight.”

  Strong hands trail over white cotton worn to sheer in some spots. Those are the places I feel Flynn’s warmth the best.

  After a minute, he wraps his arms around me and we rock together. A slow back and forth, a final dance of sorts, one intended to soothe our broken souls.

  Lips brushing over my ear, Flynn whispers, “Jaynie-bird. You’ll always be my Jaynie-bird.”

  I smile. Flynn called me Jaynie-bird only once before. We were getting to know one another, and, ironically, we were standing in the same spot as we are now. I had told him if I had one wish it would be to fly away. Away from this place, away from the pain. Flynn promised me then that someday it would happen—I would fly away. But he was always supposed to go with me. This, this leaving without him was never an option, never a consideration. Not for me, at least. Doesn’t he realize I can’t do this—leave and possibly go live my life without him?

  “I don’t think I can live without you, Flynn,” I confess, cramming all my fears into nine little words.

  “You have to, baby, at least for a little while.”

  “No, Flynn. I don’t like this one bit. What if things go wrong?”

  “Just follow the original plan. Stop in the next town. Get yourself set up. Wait for me, okay? I’ll be along when I can. You’ll see. We’ll be back together in no time.”

  “Yeah, that’s the plan,” I state flatly.

  Disheartened doesn’t even begin to cover the way I feel. Plans are great and all, but Flynn and I both know the truth. He may never make it out of here. Not with what occurred earlier tonight.

  I choke back a sob, and he reminds me, “There’s no other way, Jaynie. Not after—”

  I press a finger to his lips. “Don’t say it, Flynn. Don’t say anything more.”

  He doesn’t.

  Eventually we join hands. Peering down at our solidarity, I am amazed that even in the black heart of a black night the bloodstains on our hands are still visible. Blood doesn’t wash off so easily, and the night doesn’t hide it so well. Maybe it shouldn’t.

  I shudder. No, I can’t think about how those bloodstains led us here. So, instead, I focus on Flynn. Tall and strong, sandy brown hair as messy as ever, eyes as gray as the stormy day I met him.

  “Jaynie,” Flynn says when he sees me drifting off to a past we can no longer dwell on. “It’s time to go. We can’t stay here forever.”

  “I know.”

  “One of us has to make it out of here. If not, everything that happened earlier will have been in vain.”

  My heart constricts. “These things we’ve done and can’t undo.”

  “Jaynie, don’t.”

  I throw my arms around him and hold onto the love of my life one final time. I sob a good-bye I can’t fully articulate, but he gets it. When we rock back on our heels, Flynn wraps a long strand of my hair around his hand. Raising the auburn tress to his nose, he takes a whiff and closes his eyes.

  Smiling around a sniffle, I ask, “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Breathing you in,” he replies. “I’m making you a part of the air in my lungs.”

  He’s also trying to lighten the mood to make this easier on me.

  “There.” He lets go of my hair. “I think you’re in there pretty good now.”

  “Stop,” I mutter.

  Our eyes meet and smiles falter. We then literally fall into each other, sharing an embrace tinged with the desperation of knowing this will be our last night ever in this forest.

  These woods have offered us refuge so many times in the past. This was a place to get away from all the bad down at the house. I’ll miss these woods where Flynn and I shared so much. Naked and bare, in more ways than one, nestled in the bosom of the land, secrets were spilled like blood across the forest floor. We’ve loved and healed up here, away from prying eyes. Secrets remain safe here. We could share what we did tonight, and the forest would never tell a soul.

  We say nothing, though. There will be no confessions, not on this night.

  What was it my mother, whom I haven’t seen in four years, used to say? The times they are a-changin’, Jaynie.

  A shiver runs through me, and Flynn leans back so he can see my face. “What are you thinking about?” he asks.

  “I’m thinking again that maybe I should stay.”

  “No.” His voice is firm now. He’s tiring of this back-and-forth. “We agreed if it ever came down to only one of us getting out, it would be you. We agreed to save you, Jaynie.”

  “But we never imagined—”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “So—

  “Jaynie, no. No more stalling, no more putting off the inevitable.”

  Flynn moves farther away, giving himself more space. Still, it’s not enough and he can’t stop touching me.

  Placing a calloused finger to my lips, he says, “We’re out of time, babe.”

  I grab his hand and slide it up to my cheek. Memories of how Flynn’s fingers feel pressed to other places on my body come to mind. And then I am reminded it’s all about to end. “No,” I whisper.

  With care, Flynn lifts a strand of my hair and tucks it behind my ear.

  My heart aches at the reminder of how I was first touched by him. It seems so long ago. “Flynn—”

  “Jaynie, go. Please. Just leave.”

  I stare at him, taking him in one final time. Full lips, straight nose, the little crescent-shaped scar below one eye. I memorize it all. Placing my hands on his wide shoulders, I look up at a boy who became a man before my very eyes. Taller and stronger than the day I first met him, muscles more corded and defined, Flynn is formidable to someone like me. Next to him, I am a waif. And I am all too happy to break beneath him. I do so now, as I’ve done so many times before.

  “I thought you were beautiful the day I met you,” I con
fess. “But you’re so much more than that.” I tap his chest. “Your most beautiful places are in here.” I choke back a sob. “You’ve helped me so much. Flynn. I was such a mess.”

  Tucking another strand of unruly hair behind my ear, he smiles sadly. “Quit thinking about the past. No more looking back, okay?”

  “What if I don’t make it, Flynn? I mean the fall, the water.”

  Tears form in his eyes. “You will,” he whispers, like saying the words will make them come true.

  I nod, because what else can I do? We don’t think the fall will kill me, but you never know. In case we’re wrong, I drink him in. His cheekbones are too sharp from not getting enough to eat—never enough food, never enough of anything—and the fine sprinkling of freckles across his nose are barely visible now that he’s practically a man.

  “What are you doing, Jaynie?” he asks, smiling.

  I lift my hand and trace his lips with tentative fingers. “I’m trying to memorize everything about you. I don’t want to forget a single thing.”

  Flynn snorts, “Fuck that.”

  His lips crash into mine, and I realize this is what I’ve wanted all along, to get lost, to forget everything. Losing myself with Flynn is always easy, especially when his lips are on mine. Hell, he sure doesn’t kiss like an eighteen-year-old guy. He kisses like a fully grown man, lips and tongue moving with a skill far beyond his years.

  When he finally drops back, I grab hold of his shirt. “Promise me you’ll be all right. Swear to me this will all turn out okay.”

  Tears flow down my cheeks unchecked, hot and burning. Not he, nor I, can stop them. Not tonight.

  “I promise,” he says.

  “Swear to me we’ll meet where we said we would, as soon as you can get away.”

  “I swear.”

  “Don’t you dare go and forget about me, Flynn O’Neill.”

  “Like that would ever be possible,” he says, chuckling. But then he, too, is choking back tears. “I promise you, Jaynie Cumberland, I will never forget about you. You are burned in my soul.”