Wild Side (Rose Hill #3)

23. Tabitha

CHAPTER 23

TABITHA

I fumble the rose hip between my fingers when I hear Milo’s sugary voice behind me. “Tell me a story,” he says to Rhys.

With a day off from the restaurant, I’d told Rhys that Milo and I were going to pick rose hips for my winter tea blend. To my surprise, he hit me with the most earnest puppy dog eyes in the world and asked, “Can I come?”

And I’m not a total monster, so of course I said yes. I thought the fresh mountain air and using Milo as a buffer would help ease the tension. Things have been friendly but awkward after Rhys told me he planned to be faithful, even though our marriage is fake.

But when his deep timbre responds to my nephew with “Are we doing another one about the prince named Milo?” I know the buffer is fucking useless. This man is too much for me.

“Yes!” Milo replies, his voice bursting with energy. “With dinosaurs. And excavators.”

My lips twitch as his tongue ties around excavator . That one bedtime book has got him calling construction vehicles by their proper names.

“Okay,” Rhys says simply, and I can’t help but peek back over my shoulder at them.

An old sleeping bag is unzipped and folded out flat on the grass, plaid side facing up. Rhys lies stretched out on his back, one hand propped behind his head, the other ruffling Milo’s hair as he sits beside him. They both have rosy cheeks thanks to the chilly air, but warm coats and a thermos of tea have kept us comfortable for the last hour or so.

A huge yawn stretches Milo’s pink lips, and I glance down at my watch.

It’s nap o’clock, and Rhys must realize it too because he quickly adds, “Why don’t you lie back and listen? We can look at the clouds.”

I glance up at the perfectly blue sky, complete with big fluffy clouds floating on a leisurely course. When I look back over, I blink away the sting in my eyes as I watch my nephew curl up in the crook of the big man’s arm without hesitation. It makes me wonder if they’ve done this together before.

I turn back to the shrub before me, feeling the most confounding mixture of bliss and heartache. Their wholesome and sweet moment makes me wish Erika were here to see it. I think she’d love this.

Though it’s not lost on me that if Erika were here, I wouldn’t be. I’d be an interloper. My stomach plummets when I realize it. And then guilt lashes for enjoying this moment at all—a moment that should have been hers.

Maybe she wouldn’t like this? Maybe it’s just me who loves this? My quiet spot on the quiet side of the mountain. With Milo. And, well, my husband.

It’s right as Rhys speaks that I realize the only other person I’ve ever brought here is Milo. We go up the old logging road and through a gate on Crazy Clyde’s land. I drop him off tea in exchange for access to this valley. And then Milo and I spend leisurely afternoons picnicking, looking for bugs, and tending to the wild roses. And on the mornings when I can’t get the noise of the kitchen out of my head, I’ll come here and read.

But today I brought Rhys. And I didn’t think twice about it.

I get lost in thought, picking the red fruit and placing it in the bucket wedged beneath my arm. And I listen to Rhys’s story, punctuated by Milo’s excited giggles and impressed oohs and aahs . It’s a grand adventure about a small prince who looks identical to Milo. He uses his excavator to go digging for fossils, but what he finds is a portal to another universe where dinosaurs still exist, and he faces many perils.

I wonder the same things I do when Milo watches Paw Patrol . How the hell does a child own and operate an excavator, and where the fuck are his parents?

Eventually, the tips of my fingers feel numb, and I turn to peek back at the boys. Milo has stopped interjecting his ideas for the story because he’s passed out. He clings to Rhys like a little barnacle on a rock while the bright sun shines down on them.

Bucket in hand, I pad over to the blanket to get a closer look. Rhys is still talking, staring up at the sky and saying something about a Dilophosaurus as his thumb strokes over Milo’s shoulder.

He doesn’t stop, even when his eyes meet mine. I nod in Milo’s direction and hold a palm up to my cheek, miming sleep. Rhys stops talking and lifts his head to peer down at the little boy. And it’s the way he smiles at him—the way his eyes soften—that makes my heart skip a beat. He doesn’t look at him in a way that people who like children look at any old kid that runs past. He looks at him with pure… adoration. With a tinge of pride.

Rhys looks at Milo like he’s as good as his.

I move on instinct, without even thinking. The bucket gets left on the grass as I tiptoe to the edge of the blanket. There’s no room beside Milo, which means the only spot for me is on the other side of Rhys.

My tongue darts out over my lips as I consider what I’m about to do. Then I drop to my knees before I can talk myself out of it. I crawl up to the top and roll over onto my back, staring up at the fluffy clouds.

I can feel Rhys watching me, and his body has gone eerily still. He definitely did not expect me to march up and take the spot beside him, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to be part of the moment in a bone-deep way that I can’t even begin to explain.

The weight of his attention almost makes me squirm.

So, I defuse all that pressure with my signature sarcasm when I whisper, “Keep going. I’m dying to hear if Prince Milo defeats the Dilophosaurus. Actually, no. Tell me one about Princess Tabby.”

The ground rumbles with the baritone of his responding chuckle, the vibration of it rolling over my skin and hitting all the most delicious places. Then his arm moves. He lifts it over my head, accidentally bumping me, so I elevate my head and shift, trying to give him space to stretch his arm out. And in the awkward jumble, I somehow end up with my head resting on his bicep.

Wordlessly, he pulls me closer. And I let him.

Neither of us addresses the intimacy of me using his bicep as a pillow. Instead, he just carries on in a quiet voice, like nothing is out of the ordinary about this at all. “Let’s be real. She’d be Queen Tabby, who rules the kitchen with an iron fist.”

I press my lips together. “And King Rhys, who dresses up in spandex and?—”

“I don’t wear spandex.”

“You should. Those little manties can be part of your new branding.”

“Trunks, Tabitha. They call them trunks.”

I sigh dramatically. “Weak. That just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Another amused rumble leads us into a pregnant silence. And then I blurt out the thing that has been weighing on me ever since I found out what he does for a living yesterday. “I’m sorry I ruined your life.”

He sighs, and his head turns in my direction. “You didn’t ruin my life.”

I let my cheek fall against the crook of his arm as I meet his gaze. “It feels a little bit like I did. You just seemed like such an asshole. And I just… I love him so much, you know? I couldn’t lose him too. But once I’m—I don’t know—in a better place, he could go to Florida with y?—”

“No.”

My eyes widen. “No?”

“He belongs here. With you.”

I wrinkle my nose to stem the stinging in my eyes. “But what about you? It seems like he belongs with you too.”

He turns back to face the sky now, leaving me to soak in his profile. The strong nose. The heavy brow. A little scar up by his hairline that I never noticed before. I soak him in for several seconds until he breaks the silence with, “I was orphaned too, actually. Milo and I have that in common.”

“Rhys,” I breathe his name. “I’m so sorry.” Any words, beyond the most basic, fail me as my logic rides each wave of understanding. They lap at me one by one.

The way he swooped in instantly. The way he’s shown up for Milo, even when I made it miserable for him. The way he’s upended his life for this little boy. That he didn’t have anyone to invite to the wedding.

God.

He shrugs a shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m thirty-five. I’ve come to terms with it.”

“ Thirty-five ?”

“I feel like you just added old jokes to your plan of attack. Did you not read the marriage license?”

Clearly not .

Fuck my life. I must seem like a colossal idiot to this man. “I think I blacked out.”

I palm my forehead. My throat is thick with emotion. But my brain? My brain is fogged with embarrassment. I’ve been toeing the line of flirting with a man who is only here for Milo. He flies back and forth for Milo. He married me for Milo. I’m sure he likes me—in his own way—but he loves Milo. And everything he’s done for him has come from a place of knowing what it’s like to live this story.

My hand slips down over my eyes as I take a few deep breaths.

“Tabitha. Relax. You’re twenty-eight. I’m not that much older.”

“That’s not why I’m hiding.”

His fingers wrap around my wrist and pull my hand away from my face. “You’re not hiding. Even if you can’t see me, I can still see you.” Amusement laces his typically menacing tone as he pulls my hand to his chest, leaving it covered with his own.

“No, but you seriously have to hate me. You’re like Saint Rhys and all I’ve done is?—”

“Take care of your nephew? Go to bat for him? Fight for him with a level of ferocity that makes me wish I’d had someone like you on my team when I was a child?”

All the air leaves my lungs with a choked oomph.

“I never knew my parents. What I know is that my mom had me as a teenager and gave me up at the hospital. A couple adopted me immediately, but shortly after my second birthday, they decided parenting was too hard. By Milo’s age, I was in foster care.”

The words flow from him so easily, and I hang on to every single one. This man I know almost nothing about—partly because he hasn’t shared, but also because I haven’t asked—is taking me on a walk down memory lane, and I am fully invested.

I want to know so much more about Rhys Dupris. Snuggler of toddlers, master storyteller, professional panty twister, and WPW superstar.

“The longest I ever stayed in one place was a few years.”

I blink rapidly, envisioning him. I imagine Rhys like Milo—same chubby, rosy cheeks but with big dark eyes. What I can’t imagine is giving him away, turning him over to a system where he’d never have any stability.

“How do you know all this?”

“My file.”

I hum, turmoil burbling inside me. No wonder he was worried about Milo ending up there too.

“So you grew up in foster care the entire time? You couldn’t stay in one place?”

He shrugs. The gesture is casual, but I don’t miss the way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. “I got big. I ate a lot. I was… I don’t know. I don’t remember what I was like as a small child or any of the families I was with at that time. But I ended up scrappy at school, surly at home. And just not very lovable, I guess.”

A battering ram to my chest—that’s how those words feel. I glance at Milo, who has his body pressed safely against Rhys’s opposite side. Rhys is giving him all the security no one afforded him as a child. God, I just want to crawl on top of him and hug him, squeeze him tight like I do Milo when he’s sad.

I settle for splaying my fingers and pressing my hand against his heart. Then I try his move on for size, letting my thumb rub lazy circles against his jacket. My shoulders feel tight for a moment, as though bracing for him to shake me off or give me a dismissive eye roll and tell me he doesn’t need any coddling.

But he just sighs.

“Was it bad?” I pry a little further, not sure if I want to know the answer.

“Hmm. Not all bad. Mostly just unstable. I got juggled around a fair amount, which was tiring. Constantly navigating new household dynamics as a teenager was not ideal. It got better when I found wrestling at a small gym. Had to lie about my age to train, but at my size, it wasn’t a hard sell. The only bad part about it was that working out so much made me hungry all the fucking time. Pretty sure all my first paychecks went straight to food, which I’d hide in my room so that none of the other kids would come and swipe it.”

He chuckles over the last few words. But I don’t. I think back to that night I heard his stomach growling and the carbonara I whipped up for him. Part of what I love about being a chef is feeding people. Providing nourishment is my way of showing I care.

I loved cooking for Erika. She always ate with such gusto. Watching Milo lick his fingers clean after my from-scratch mac ’n’ cheese feels like winning Olympic gold for me. And seeing my friends laughing, talking, and savoring a meal made from my recipes at our wedding is a memory I will cherish forever.

It’s with those images in my head that I promise myself to never let Rhys go hungry again.

“I’m glad you told me. Milo is lucky to have you in his life.”

I hear him swallow and see him nod from the corner of my eye. Something tells me he doesn’t open up often and is realizing how much he let out in his valiant attempt to make me feel better. Now it feels like my opportunity to return the favor.

With one hand still holding him, I point up to the sky. “That cloud looks like Cleocatra.”

Rhys groans, but I detect humor in the sound.

“And if you squint, that one looks like you petting her.”

“Weird. Because I would never pet her.”

I snort. Liar .

“Plus, that strip of cloud is way too long to be my arm. It looks all stretched out.”

“You’re right. Maybe that’s Terence petting Cleocatra.”

His head snaps to the side, and our gazes collide. “Who?”

“Stretch. From bowling.”

Violence flashes in Rhys’s eyes, and it makes my stomach flip. That he goes from soft to feral so effortlessly shouldn’t be this exciting for me. But here I am. Lusting . Like the fucking mess I am.

“If that guy pets my cat, I’ll tie a knot in his scrawny arm to match the one in his neck.”

I grin. “Did you just say your cat?”

Now I get an eye roll and a small head shake. “Whatever.”

“Are you jealous?” I tease.

“No.”

I raise a scrutinizing eyebrow at him as Milo stirs on his opposite side, arm reaching over Rhys’s chest.

He doesn’t look at me when the next words leave his lips, but they still send my stomach flipping again all the same. “But now you know I could tie a knot in his neck, and if he talks to you like that again, I will.”

We fall into silence, staring at the sky above us. Minutes later, he breaks it with, “That one looks like Erika. The plant.”

“Oooh,” Milo’s sleepy voice chimes in unexpectedly. “Hi, Mama.”

I smile, even though it hurts. It’s nice to think that we can see Erika anywhere we choose to look. We pick out shapes in the clouds for I don’t know long. And when we go home that afternoon, I get busy cooking the boys what Rhys declares is “one of the best meals he’s ever eaten.”

And I make way too much.

Just in case he’s hungry again later.