Page 98 of Tempting as Sin
Rafe sat bolt upright in bed, his heart galloping like he was on a runaway horse. Like the hounds of hell were after him. Or like the woman he loved was riding in front of him, about to go over the edge.
That had been the dream. She’d been on that nearly-white mare, riding across the meadow, and he’d been riding after her. She hadn’t looked ecstatic this time. She’d been running away. Running from something bad, something wrong, and he wasn’t sure if it was him. He was trying to catch her, or he was trying to catch up with her, to turn her from the danger. He didn’t know which. He knew she was in trouble, and he knew that he was the only one who could save her, but he didn’t know if she knew. If she’d even let him.
He groped for his water glass, drank the whole thing down, felt the sweat standing out on his body like rain, and made himself breathe.
Lily was fine. She’d texted him from the Byron Bay house hours ago. The soft chime had woken him, and the words had been there in a bubble on the screen, reassuringly solid.
It is so beautiful. I can’t tell you. I love you. I appreciate you. I know you’re asleep. I just had to tell you.
He’d texted back,No worries, baby. I’m glad it’s making you happy,had thought about calling her, and had resisted. This was her getaway, her chance to gather herself again in the quiet, to think it through. To come to terms with what she’d left behind, and what she was taking on. With Antonio, and Bailey.
And him.
That knock straight to the chest again, so hard that he put his hand to it, trying to control what couldn’t be controlled.
You’re dreaming, mate,he told himself.Literally. Leaving’s still weeks away, and she’s not going anywhere. You are.
In less than two weeks, he had to be in New Mexico. The fact had lain there for the past week, merciless and solid, right under the surface. Swimming under you like a shark, its cold eye on you, knowing it would have its chance. That the moment was inevitable.
Nothing’s inevitable. You make your own luck.
He believed it. Except at two in the morning, sweating from a nightmare, missing Lily. And sensing the shark.
Rafe was chopping wood in the afternoon warmth, getting the work in ahead of another summer storm that had the breeze picking up and the clouds roiling over the mountain. He was keeping Chuck a safe distance away from the axe, and he was working out the demons.
He’d come back from his run an hour earlier, after pushing it harder than ever. No excuse, now, not to get the pounds off, not with Lily gone. No beer and no bread. Heaps of veggies and lean protein, and a focus on cardio and functional fitness that would shape the body he needed. Muscle, long and lean, and a face and frame and soul fined down by hours and days and weeks in the saddle, eating and sleeping when you could. Not enough softness, not nearly enough love, and too many hard things done and witnessed. Deciding the right and wrong of a thing for yourself, and trusting that decision.
A hard man in body and soul, but a man committed to justice who couldn’t walk away and couldn’t back down. A man who had some tenderness still, at his core, that hadn’t yet been burnt away in the fires. Hidden even to himself, but growing, in the right soil, with enough light and enough attention and the water from a woman’s tears, from a seed to a sprout, until, finally, it sent that first tentative leaf up through the surface. Still alive after all.
That was the idea, anyway.
If he were meant to be a harder man, a tougher man, in about ten days? Maybe he was getting there and maybe he wasn’t. Right now, for example, he felt nothing but uneasy. The dream two nights ago had only been the start of it. Today, on his run, he’d felt the threat more strongly than ever. Unseen, and unnerving. The shark again, its cold black eye unblinking, waiting its chance.
Or the black dog, more like. That’s what Jace had called it during one of those dark nights after he’d come back from war, when the only person he would let near him was Rafe. The weight of the world sucking you down into darkness. Or, possibly, the weight of something much more straightforward. Of a woman who hadn’t rung you for two days. A woman you’d sent away to think things through, in your arrogance, like she was bound to choose you.
What kind of fool did that? What kind of idiot didn’t seize his chance with both hands and hold that woman close, once he’d finally found her? Who sent her eight thousand miles away and gave her the opportunity to think better of it?
That would be him. He brought the axe down hard, dead into the center of the block of wood, and watched the two pieces fall to either side.
If you didn’t trust her to choose you, you didn’t trust her at all. Better to find that out now than later, for both of them. He told himself that again, and tried to believe it.
Another gust of wind, stronger this time, and he picked up the pace. He’d push it hard, then grab a shower, light the stove, and settle down for a rainy evening with a cup of tea and the script. He was nearly there now. He had the feel of the part, the cadence and rhythm of the words, not just the words themselves, taking up residence in his hippocampus, and someplace deeper, too. And not only that. Today, he’d done a trail ride with Jo where Thunderbolt had splashed through a stream that came nearly up to his belly, then forced his way up a too-steep bank on the other side exactly like in the movies, and Rafe’s body hadn’t even thought about falling off.
Progress. It literally meant “walking forward,” and that was what he was doing. When you walked on, you left things behind, unless they walked with you. He had to harden his heart, that was all. He had five days before Lily came back to do it. Heaps of time. It was another learning opportunity, and he was good at learning.
Nobody’s hero.
More chunks of wood fell to his axe. Picking up the rhythm, at the edge of “too fast,” just before you crossed over into danger. Where he needed to be.
He heard the car first. Or, rather, Chuck did. Rafe straightened, axe in hand, and watched it come up the gravel road.
Not another journo, surely. They’d left two days ago, once most of the story had left along with Lily and Bailey. No percentage in following Rafe around as he went for a coffee or stopped into Sinful Desires to have a chat with Martin. The Drama-Free Zone once again. He’d made bloody sure not to take off his shirt or go for any swims, and they’d left for greener pastures, to where somebody was divorcing or trashing a hotel room or otherwise melting down.
Not a journalist, no. A taxi, turning into his drive. Chuck was barking joyfully, his tail wagging hard, and something inside Rafe was lighting up in exactly the same way, even though it wasn’t possible.
The boot opened and the driver got out and went around, presumably to collect luggage. The back door opened, and there was a leg. A shapely one, and a foot wearing a canvas wedge sandal striped with color. Above it, a calf and a knee and a thigh, and a gaily striped skirt, snug on top and ruffled beneath, not too far down those thighs at all.
Rafe had long since driven the axe into the chopping block. Chuck reached her first, but not by much. The taxi was reversing, pulling out onto the road, and Lily was making no move at all to grab her suitcase.
