In the Firelight (26 page)

With a sip of his black coffee, Rhys heard a slight movement behind him. Shea stood in the hallway wrapped in a wrinkled dress shirt that must have been tossed over the chair by his bed. She was watching him sadly, her large hazel eyes sharp with pain. His heart constricted.

She was going to leave.

Rhys looked down into his cup. “Do you want some coffee?” he asked as he glanced back over at her.

“I, um… No. I need to get to the airport pretty quickly. My flight leaves in just under two hours.”

Rhys swallowed hard against the lump in his throat and nodded. “I’ll go get dressed and give you a ride.”

He passed close to her as he walked down the hallway to his bedroom.
She wasn’t going to cry.
She was tougher than that, and she could keep it inside… to herself. She wasn’t going to cry over a man she barely knew.

Even if he had turned her whole world upside down.

She crossed to the couch and pulled on her panties and jeans. She found her sweatshirt in the front hallway and her bra under a stool by the breakfast bar. She dressed quickly in a mechanical state and combed her fingers through her knotted hair as she looked in a mirror on the living room wall.

Her eyes were distant as they stared back at her. Her soul felt empty thinking about the flight home. For a moment, she considered staying… just for a few days.

But the words Rhys had said last night…

I don’t know what is next for me…

As much as it hurt to just walk away from him, the last thing he needed was her hanging onto him, dragging him back to Snowcreek with her. He needed to find what was next, on his own. He was so lost.

And as much as she wanted to help him, to hold him and comfort him and guide him, she knew he needed to do this himself. To find his place.

Fully dressed in a smooth, soft sweater and faded denim jeans, Rhys re-entered the room and slid his feet into a pair of shoes that sat beside the couch.

He stood and took a deep breath. “Ready, sweetheart?”

Shea nodded, not entirely sure she trusted her voice to speak.

He pulled on a jacket and picked up his keys from where he’d dropped them inside the door the night before.

“Do you need to stop anywhere? Hotel?”

Shea just shook her head, and quietly whispered. “I didn’t bring anything. I was so mad when I left Snowcreek, I didn’t even think about it.”

Rhys nodded and studied her for a moment. Then he held out his arm towards the main door to the apartment. “After you…”

He stood silently by Shea as they waited for her plane to board. There wasn’t much time left once they had reached the airport. The call for first class had just sounded, and the ache in his chest intensified viciously.

He wanted to ask her to stay. Or to let him come with her. He wanted…
her
. However he could get her.

But he didn’t deserve her.

And then, it was announced that she could board. It was time. She looked up at him with tearful eyes.

“Do me a favor, huh?” she sniffed. “When you figure things out… will you call me?”

He didn’t want to hurt her anymore. He wanted her to be happy. “I’m not sure what I’m doing, Shea. I have no idea what’s next.”

“I know…” With a catch in her voice, she rushed on. “And I’m not asking you to come rushing to me… or to be anything you don’t want to for me. I just want to know that you’re okay.”

“I will,” he said in a pained whisper. Rhys lifted his hand, using his thumb to brush away a tear that trailed down her soft cheek. “I promise.”

Her breath shuddered and his other hand slid into her hair, pulling her lips up towards his.

He kissed her goodbye with a soft gentleness that he didn’t know he held. With the touch of his lips, he tried to express how much she had affected him. How the warmth of her soul had melted his frozen heart. How she has made him a better man.

He pulled back and gazed down one last time at her tearful eyes. He couldn’t speak as she slowly pulled away and walked towards her gate.

Chapter 22 ~ The Spring

Spring was starting to peek through the receding snow. Heading back down the trail from a long hike, Shea noted a few little green shoots of glacier lilies poking their way through the frigid snow. As she got closer to her cabin and the frozen layer began to recede, dainty yellow blooms began to appear. A few more weeks, and the mountainsides would be covered with alumroot and Indian paintbrush, giving way later in the summer to asters and harebells.

He hadn’t called. Maybe he never would.

She had anticipated this bereft loneliness, way back when she gave into the aching need he had instilled in her. But in spite of the seemingly eternal rift in her soul, she wouldn’t change a thing. She had received something special in that short little snapshot of time. Something beautiful that she could look back on and hold close to her heart.

For that short time, she had felt a glimmer of what could have been love. She had almost felt loved in return. And even though it was now over, it had been so worth the loneliness that still hovered over her like a dark cloud. The warmth of those moments in the firelight carried her through the cold winter nights. It had only been a few days, a sliver of time in the long the Montana winter, but she had known he would leave a mark.

Four months since she’d heard from him, since she’d seen him and touched him. Since she’d boarded her plane to come home.

And she missed him every day.

Where was he? How was he?

As Shea hiked out of the thicket of trees behind her cabin, Wolfie’s ears pricked forward, and he bounded ahead of her with a deep and throaty bark. Probably some poor innocent little ground squirrel who had ventured out of his warm little burrow to look for something to eat.
Crazy dog…

Walking towards the woodshed to grab an armload of firewood, she saw an unfamiliar pickup truck parked in front of her place. For a second, her hopes rose, thinking maybe it was Rhys.

Stop it, Shea
, she berated herself sternly. She did this every time. Every time she saw a strange vehicle on the mountain roads or pulling into town. And every time, her heart broke once more.

It wasn’t him.

He hadn’t even called.

But then a gentle, deep voice caught her ear. Her steps quickened as she rounded the little cabin, and then her heart veritably stopped at the sight before her.

There was Rhys sitting on her the top stair of her porch. Wolfie’s tail wagged in recognition as he tried to lick the man’s face.

“Hey, old boy…” he was chuckling softly to the large dog, scratching him behind the ears. “Where’s Shea, huh?”

He was dressed in a blue plaid flannel shirt and jeans, a down vest over his broad torso to ward off the late spring chill. His hair was a little longer, and his jaw was covered in a thick scruff of beard. A small sob escaped from her throat, drawing his attention, and his strikingly deep blue eyes lifted to hers.

Shea couldn’t move. Just a tremor through her body as her brain tried to process the fact that he was there, flesh and blood before her. Wolfie nudged him with a heavy nose, and Rhys stroked the dog’s thick fur for another moment while he stared at Shea. Finally, he rose and took a few steps towards her.

“Hey…” he said softly.

“You didn’t call…” Shea’s voice cracked with the emotion flooding through her.

“I wanted to, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Every day. Every minute of these last few months.” He looked down at his feet for a moment and lifted his head again, scrubbing his hand over his scruffy chin. “Shea… I feel so unworthy.” His voice trailed off and he shook his head. “I’ve been trying to figure out who I am, because nothing’s the way I thought it was. The guilt I feel for everything I’ve done is overpowering. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make things right… to absolve my sins, I guess.”

Shea took a step closer, then another. “Rhys, you can’t just undo everything that happened.”

His brow knitted with frustrated scowl, and he took a deep breath. “I know… I just wanted you to know that, the pain I caused you, it altered me somehow. Seeing how much I hurt you… I never want to hurt someone like that again. That drowning regret hits me every time I think of you.” He looked at the ground again, shuffling his feet nervously. “Part of me hoped you weren’t alone anymore. That you had found someone who made you happy. The other part of me wanted to fucking murder anyone who might have touched you.”

Shea gave him a wistfully sad smile. “Rhys, I’m twenty-eight years old. I was married for three years, and it’s been seven since I left my husband and came home. But, in just those few short days, you made me feel more than I ever did with him… with anyone. It was kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I think. Do you really think I would rush off and start something new with someone else?”

With another couple steps, Shea stood only a hair’s breadth away, and the familiar scent of Rhys infused her with the strength to speak in a strong, calm tone.

“I should regret it all. I didn’t want to be drawn to you. And I felt so betrayed…”

His head dipped low and to the side. Shea caught his jaw with her mittened hand, and urged his gaze back to hers as she softly spoke.

“But I don’t regret any of it. Not even a second. Because, in spite of how I fought it, I think I actually needed you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she lifted her lips towards his. “I love you…”

Rhys felt all the breath leave his body with those three little words. He pulled her tightly in his arms as his lips crushed down to hers.

She loved him.

Fuck… after all the shit he pulled, she loved him.

“God, Shea,” he murmured against her lips. “I don’t deserve you.”

Shea backed away slightly, framing his face with her hands. “You saved me. I didn’t even know I was lonely. I was so afraid of my heart breaking that I had myself convinced I didn’t want love.” Her hazel eyes swam with unshed tears. “But I was just dying inside, slowly and all alone… until you. You brought me to life.”

Rhys gathered her small, soft body close to him as she embraced him and buried her face in his neck. He lifted her against him, straightening until her feet dangled in the air.