Real Shadows - M.E. Clayton Page 0,3

the only person I could remotely consider a friend, Karla Craig, and had told her everything. She was the only person I considered a friend because I never stayed in a place long enough to make friends. I had kept to myself. I also hadn’t been ready to explain my crazy to anyone because that’s how I felt sometimes.

I felt crazy.

Karla and I had grown up in foster care together, but when she was around sixteen, she had been claimed by a long-lost relative, and he had taken her to live with him and his family. I had been happy for her but devastated by the loss. Friends-true friends-were hard to come by in foster care. We stayed in touch, but our lives were definitely polar opposites.

After telling Karla everything, she had insisted I move to North Dakota and start fresh. She made living in Small Town, USA sound so wonderful and safe. She also pointed out that it was a far cry from California and, where a stranger wouldn’t stand out in the busy streets of California, a stranger would definitely stand out in Brant, North Dakota.

So, I had packed up everything I owned, pulled out every cent I had in the bank, filled up my gas tank, and had taken off the next day, after taking care of my work, rental, and utilities obligations.

And now, driving through the great state of Montana, I was almost to my destination, and, hopefully, new life.

A life where I didn’t fear every shadow.

Chapter 2

Xander~

North Dakota in July could be just as warm as Florida. The sweat dripping down my face and back could attest to that.

But I loved it.

The winters in North Dakota didn’t leave much room for outdoor work or activities, so during the warmer months, I relished in the physical activity working construction brought on. Yeah, technically, I was a contractor and owner of the company, but that didn’t mean I had let the titles turn me into being lazy and out of touch with the manual labor side of things. I still loved working with my hands no matter how many hours I spent behind a desk.

Eight years ago, I had only been twenty-two-years-old when a horrible snowstorm had claimed the lives of both my parents. They had been victims of a car accident caused by a tourist who had been inexperienced at driving in the snow. The accident had taken her life too, but, at the time, that hadn’t felt like a consolation. My parents had been taken from this world too soon, and it had taken me years to rid myself of the hate and resentment. The pain and sadness of their loss was still there, but I’ve managed to learn to live with those dormant emotions that made random appearances every now and again.

With that horrendous loss, I had been willed everything my parents had owned. Being the only child, it had all fallen in my lap. Including my father’s construction company. Daniel Raynes had been the muscle behind Raynes Construction and Sela Raynes had been the brains behind everything else. My parents had been a phenomenal pair, and I could only hope that they were the same dynamic duo up in Heaven.

It had been a struggle to deal with my grief and the change of direction in my life, but my best friend and childhood buddy, Trevor Craig, had done his best to get me through those dark, struggling times. I had just graduated from college and had been ready to move to New York and start my life as a financier. I had degrees in business and finance and had been ready to take on the world. But with the loss of my parents, maintaining what my father and mother had built mattered more to me than a high-profile career in New York. Overnight, my priorities had changed, and I’ve not regretted one day of my decision since then.

However, the need to sustain my parents’ legacy had left me little time to do what most small-town folks did, and that was marry and have a family. The first three years after my parents’ deaths, I had spent every waking minute learning the business from the ground up, and keeping the company from dipping into the red. I had learned that the winter months consisted more of maintenance and repairs due to the harsh winters. And I had learned that the summer months consisted of building the town folk’s dreams as fast as I could,