Page 71 of Love In Translation

Embarrassment skittered across his face, and Rheo knew she’d scored a direct hit. “All I wanted was a little respect, Fletch.”

“Rheo...Fuck. I just—” Fletch said, running his hands through his hair.

No, he’d said more than enough. She now understood his position. And as he said, it was light-years away from hers.

“Thanks for filling me in on where you stand,” she told him, keeping her voice steady.

She turned and walked away, desperate not to cry. When her foot hit the first of the steps leading to the kitchen door, he called her name in a hoarse voice. She slowly turned and lifted her hands in aWhat now?gesture.

He waved to the bench. “Just come back and let’s talk, okay?”

Rheo’s eyebrows rose. “Now you want to talk?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Yeah, I think you’ve said everything you need to, Wright. Save your breath.”

Rheo, her heart cracking, climbed the steps to the kitchen and slipped inside the house. They said you should never ask a question unless you absolutely wanted to hear the truth, and she’d relearned that lesson tonight.

Fletch didn’t love her. Couldn’t. And he never would.

She hated this.

No, shefuckinghated this.

Rheo gripped the slippery net and tried to haul her body up it. Her muscles screamed. She glared at the brown legs of a ten-year-old flying past her and couldn’t work out why she’d said yes to competing in this stupid race. She was covered in mud—there was mud in her teeth for God’s sake! Every muscle in her body begged her to stop and she knew her slow pace was irritating Carrie. Carrie wanted to fly but felt honorbound to stay with Rheo. If she could raise the energy, she still wouldn’t care.

She was only twenty minutes into the race, and she was over it. This wassonot her thing.

Rheo rolled over the top of the net and dropped into the ankle-deep mud. Another wave of sludge invaded her sneakers, and she closed her eyes. How much longer? And could she just die here?

Carrie grabbed her hand and pulled her along the slushy track, forcing Rheo into a half run. Carrie, unlike her, looked reasonably clean. Her legs were a bit muddy, but from her navel up she looked shower-fresh. In fact, everyone but Rheo looked reasonably clean.

She looked like a swamp witch.

Rheo told Carrie to go on ahead—she was dying to, and off she trotted, a perfect little pony. Rheo’s mood was as foul as this mud; she was far out of her comfort zone, dirty, sweaty, and tired. And furious with Fletch.

Soul deep, catastrophically angry. Because, by shutting her out of his life, he’d made her feel ten years old again, trying to fit into her parents’ lives.

Rheo pushed her hand into her side, trying to massage away a stitch. In the distance, Carrie exchanged a quip with an older man and their laughter drifted back to her. Ed and Gail, standing on the sidelines, shouted something at Carrie, who dropped into a quick curtsy. Emotions from her childhood welled up. It was always them and her—she was little Rheo again, her nose pressed against the window, looking in.

Last night, with Fletch, she’d felt out of the loop yet again, on the outside of his life asking to be let in. She’d become an unwanted presence for him, a complication, aWhat the fuck do I do with her now?problem.

Rheo looked at the tunnel she needed to crawl through and shook her head. What else would she have to do before she could shower? At the end of her rope, physically and mentally, she fought the urge to walk away.

She desperately wanted to.

Shecould. No one held a gun to her head, it wasn’t a case of life or death, and judging by the concerned looks her family kept sending her, they were surprised she’d lasted this long. They were watching her, trying not to be obvious about it, wondering whether this was the point when she threw in the towel.

They expected her to, she could see it on their faces.

What if she did? Why did she have to run a stupid race to prove she was brave and confident and in control?

She’d come a long way over the past six weeks, admittedly with Fletch’s guidance. She wasn’t so panic-stricken and could look at the future with a measure of calm. She’d gained a measure of confidence from knowing such a masculine, rugged man wanted her, and that confidence seeped into the rest of her life. Through talking to Fletch, she’d come to face her demons and found ways to dodge them.

She’d come a long way and she’d grown up. A little.

She liked herself more than she did seven weeks ago, the biggest revelation of all.

“C’mon, Rheo!” her dad shouted, his hands around his mouth.

Rheo dropped to her knees, released a series of f-bombs, and crawled through the mud-filled tunnel. It smelled like dirt and stanky water and sweat. She emerged and she pulled in a couple of deep breaths of fresh air.

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