Page 37 of Love In Translation

What happened? What pushed her train off the rails? He wanted to know. Every day, his curiosity increased, and his fascination rose. It should be the other way around. Normally, by this point, he’d be bored and wanting to move on. Not necessarily to another woman but to another place and another experience. Each trip felt like a victory against his past limitations. But Rheo made him want to stay.

And stay.

Being so different, he couldn’t understand their connection, which was mental as well as physical. Rheo’d told him about her life in New York City—it sounded a little bland and a little too regimented for him—and she looked horrified when he told her he’d encountered a sixteen-foot anaconda deep in the Amazon basin. If she didn’t like peeing behind a bush, she’d hate camping and wouldn’t survive the first day of one of his trips. In fairness, if she took him to a book reading or a ballet recital in the city, he’d be asleep within ten minutes.

Opposites supposedly attracted, but Fletch and Rheo were an extreme case. Luckily, they accepted their relationship couldn’t go anywhere. There was no chance of anything permanent. He didn’t do forever, and Rheo had enough issues with her adventurous family without her adding an explorer lover to the list. No, they both understood their time together at the Pink House was an anomaly, a fracture in space and time. Like hot water on a camp stove, it wasn’t destined to last.

He liked it that way...

Didn’t he?

Later that morning, Rheo and Fletch sat at a window booth in Abi’s diner. They were her first customers of the day and were enjoying their second breakfasts. Well, Fletch was enjoying his, but Rheo couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for fresh fruit salad and unsweetened yogurt. She’d become more conscious of the weight she’d put on over the past few months, and sleeping with Fletch, whose body could make angels weep, made her more self-conscious than usual.

Oh, she wasn’t fat, and Fletch loved her body—he told her so often—but him cooking healthy and tasty meals for her made her want to embrace a healthier lifestyle.

Rheo had silently vowed to start eating better and maybe getting some exercise. She’d even looked at some workout videos on YouTube, thinking she’d try one when Fletch next left the house.Ser pan comido.It should be a cinch. Millions did it all the time. They had to be easier and more fun than they looked.

Rheo speared a strawberry and lifted it to her lips, wishing she’d ordered pancakes loaded with nuts and chocolate syrup. Why couldn’t loads of carbs be healthy? Why did the good stuff taste like crap? Why couldn’t she crave carrots? These were deeply important questions to which she’d never get an answer.

“I’m going to rebuild the gazebo in the garden.”

Rheo lowered her strawberry. “Why?” she asked, taking in his out-of-the-blue statement.

Sorting out the gazebo was on her to-do list. She’d made a note to have the wood removed. She’d buy her grandmother a bottle of her favorite perfume as an apology gift. If Paddy ever forgave her... Her grandmother wasn’t the forgiving sort. She didn’t give second chances, especially if she believed she’d been lied to. The fact that she still wasn’t talking to Rheo’s father, Ed, after more than a year was testament to that.

Not telling Paddy she was living in her house would be, in her grandmother’s books, a pretty big offense.

Fletch loaded his fork, lifted it to his mouth, and chewed. “I like to build stuff, and I’m terrified you’ll rebuild it on your own. You’re crap at woodwork.”

A fair assessment of her carpentry skills. “I agree. I’ll stick to languages,” she told him. She rested her forearms on the table and wrinkled her nose. “I’m pretty exhausted. You owe me for making me get up so early.”

“Thank you for doing it.” He smiled at her. “You were great today. I’m seriously impressed.”

Rheo swore her insides lit up like Christmas lights. When had she last heard she was amazing? Paddy occasionally praised her as a kid, but not anymore. As Paddy informed her, adults shouldn’t need constant validation.

“It wasn’t half as hard as I thought it would be,” Rheo admitted.

“Anticipation is always worse than the actual event,” he said. “The river is never as deep and scary, the mountain never as hard, the blizzard never as cold as you think.” He shook his head. “Actually, the blizzard I experienced on the Antarctic Plateau was fucking cold. There’s nothing worse than trying to erect a tent in a howling wind when it’s minus sixty.”

“I’d just collapse and let the polar bears eat me.”

“There aren’t any polar bears in Antarctica,” Fletch informed her, smiling.

“You know what I mean,” Rheo muttered, as the doorbell above the diner’s door jingled, indicating the arrival of another early-morning customer.

Fletch grinned at her, and he took a long time to pull his eyes away from hers. She knew he was remembering the hot sex they’d had in the shower last night, or maybe he was thinking of another position for them to try later.

It was a revelation to discover how much she loved sex, the act of giving and receiving pleasure. Fletch was an incredible lover, and she was far better than she was before. Less self-conscious and not so uptight.

Naked or clothed, she loved looking at him, and could do it for the longest time. His face was rugged, but intelligence sparked in his eyes. He fascinated her. If he were anyone other than a nomadic explorer, she might think she was falling for him...just a little.

Fletch looked away, and Rheo followed his gaze. Abi stood next to their table, a loaded kid’s size waffle in her hands. Abi whipped away Rheo’s fruit salad and dumped the plate in front of her.

“Nobody comes into my diner and plays with their food,” Abi told her.

Her friend instructed Fletch to scoot up, and when he did, she sat opposite Rheo and placed her folded arms on the table. “Why are you awake so early, Whitlock? You feeling all right?”

Rheo told Fletch to explain and attacked her waffle, groaning when the combination of the crispy base, toasty nuts, and dark chocolate hit her tongue. Fletch told her about their morning and Rheo met Abi’s curious gaze.

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