Chapter Sixteen
The next four days passed in a blur of work, making love, and brief excursions into Bakewell or other nearby villages. They dined out for many of their meals, and walked and walked down narrow cobbled streets, in snow and rain.
Those four days were magical, days that Cat would never forget. Every day at least once the girls would call their dad and Rhys would light up, happy and relieved to hear from them. But the phone calls were always short, and Rhys sometimes struggled after they hung up, missing them.
Ever since the call an hour ago, Rhys had been quiet. They were both on the couch, Cat sitting up, Rhys stretched out, his head in her lap.
He’d been reading earlier, but the book had slipped to the floor.
Now his head was turned, and he was staring into the fire.
Cat idly traced the line of his strong brow before down his straight nose, over his lips, to his equally strong chin.
He had the face of a gladiator, or a warrior, which was only fitting because when he was in the operating room he was fighting death. He was fighting to save someone.
“I don’t know why it has to be them or you,” he said after a moment. “I don’t know why I can’t have you both.”
Her hand stilled. “I’m not making you choose. Oh, Rhys, how can you think that?”
“I love being here with you, but when we leave, I go home, and they return to me, and then you’ll be gone. I can have you now, and then I can have them then, but I will never have you all at the same time again.”
It did sound awful put like that.
She carefully smoothed his dark hair back from his brow. “But that’s not what’s happening. You do know that, don’t you?”
“All I know is that soon I lose you, and it’s because of them.”
“No, Rhys. It’s not because of them. It’s because of a promise I made. I promised Jillian she didn’t have to worry about me. I told Jillian I wasn’t a threat, not to her, not to her family.”
“And how do you get to decide that for me? Why don’t I have any say?”
She had no answer for that. She bit her lip and prayed that the right words would come. They didn’t.
Rhys sat up and stood and then walked across the room. “You should get some sleep, Cat. It’s late.”
His cool, almost cutting dismissal made her chest tighten.
She stared at his back, at the rigid set of his shoulders in the flicker of firelight. “Don’t do that, Rhys.”
He turned slightly. “Do what?”
“Dismiss me as if I’m one of your girls up past her bedtime.”
His jaw flexed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did. You don’t like what I’m saying so you’re going to make me feel small and bad, but I’m doing the right thing, keeping my promise to Jillian. She has to know that she can trust adults. She has to know that one’s word matters.”
“And what exactly am I supposed to feel, Cat? That you care for me, but you’re leaving anyway?”
She rose, too, the blanket sliding from her lap to the floor. “You’re not the only one who’s hurting.”
He turned toward her fully, eyes dark, unreadable. “Then help me understand how walking away fixes anything.”
Her heart twisted. “It doesn’t. But I can’t break the promise I made to her. She trusts me.”
He gave a low, incredulous laugh. “You made a promise to my daughter—a promise she couldn’t possibly understand.
She’s a child, Cat. She doesn’t know what it’s like to find someone who feels right.
Someone who fits.” He shook his head, voice quieter now but no less fierce.
“But you do understand. You know exactly what this—us—is.”
Cat met his gaze, her pulse thudding, her body trembling. “That’s what makes it so hard. I do know.”
“Cat, love, you belong with me.”
Her eyes burned and she pressed a hand to her middle, pressing back against the pain.
“But you don’t come alone. You’re part of a package, a family package, and we don’t have a chance if either of your girls oppose the relationship.
” She drew a quick, sharp breath. “I had friends in school whose parents remarried and so many of those relationships were angry and volatile, or cold and unhappy. I don’t want that for you.
I don’t want that for your girls. And, Rhys, as much as I care for you, I don’t want that for me. ”
“So, we just walk away? Let this end?”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
They stood there, motionless, the firelight flickering between them.
Then Rhys turned away first, jaw set, control clamped tight. “Then I guess that’s it,” he said, his voice quietly. “Goodnight, Cat.”
She didn’t move. “Goodnight.”
She listened to his footsteps on the stairs, and then fading down the hall, listening until there was no sound at all.
She wasn’t angry. Not at him. Not even at herself.
She was exhausted though. After a moment, she turned off the tree lights, checked the lock on the front door, and climbed the narrow stairs to her room.
The cottage was cold at the top, and her room doubly chilly.
She slipped into her flannel pajamas and then climbed between the covers, shivering.
She hadn’t pulled the drapes and from her bed she watched the snow fall, a silent swirling veil of white.
Cat woke to a pale gray morning, the snow had stopped sometime in the night, and what remained on the ground was patchy and light. Downstairs, she could hear Rhys moving about—drawers opening, the low hum of the kettle, the sound of a new day beginning.
When she entered the kitchen, he was already dressed, crisp and efficient, as if the night before had never happened. He looked up briefly, nodded, then poured himself coffee.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice quiet.
“Morning.” He didn’t meet her eyes.
The silence stretched between them. He added milk to his mug, stirred once, and set the spoon aside with careful precision. “Got a few emails to catch up on,” he said. “Work never really stops.”
“Right,” she murmured.
He took his mug with him and went to his chair in the sitting room. She stood there for a moment, feeling something sharp and hollow open in her chest. The cottage suddenly seemed too small for both of them. She couldn’t breathe. She had to get out.
Cat dressed quickly, pulled on boots, and set out on the path toward the main house. The cold air stung her cheeks, the thin snow squeaking underfoot. The walk should have cleared her head, but her thoughts tangled with every step—Rhys’s voice, Rhys’s anger, Rhys’s rejection.
The red brick house loomed through the trees. The holiday tours were over, and all the crews gone until next December. But the light was on in the kitchen, and she pushed open the side door, dogs barking and racing toward her. Alec’s dogs. They went everywhere with him.
Alec emerged from the kitchen, holding a toddler in each arm. “Happy New Year’s Eve,” he said.
Cat blinked. “Is it? I didn’t realize.”
“Just finished giving these two breakfast. Are you looking for Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Booth or…”
“Your wife.” Cat struggled to hold her smile. “If she’s not too busy.”
“She’s finishing a call, should be off any moment. Head to the music room, you’ll find her there.”
Cat followed the sound of Cara’s voice to the music room, and Cara was saying goodbye and hanging up even as Cat entered the pretty blue room.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite American neighbor,” Cara said, her tone light but her eyes perceptive. “You look like someone who’s been thinking too much.”
“I have. Do you have a few minutes?” Tears stung Cat’s eyes. “I’m … I…”
“Sit, Cat. It’s okay.”
Cat sank into one of the chairs near the window.
Her hands knotted together, fingers twisting.
“Why is trying to do the right thing so hard?” She looked at Cara and dashed away a tear before it could fall.
“I have to go home. Rhys doesn’t understand.
He thinks if he wills it, he can make all our differences and problems go away. ”
“What are those problems?”
“He has children.” Cat struggled to take a calming breath. “Children I adore, but children who don’t want to lose their father … especially not to me.”
“You know this?”
“Jillian told me to leave her father alone. And because I was hired to be the nanny, I agreed with her, and assured her that I wasn’t after her father.”
Cara tilted her head. “But?”
“I’ve fallen in love with Rhys, and I think—I know—he wants me to stay in London, to not go back to Michigan. He thinks we belong together.”
“But he hasn’t proposed?”
Cat shook her head.
“And he hasn’t come up with a plan to win Jillian over?” Cara added.
Cat shook her head again. “But maybe he would if I gave him a chance. Maybe if I told him I wanted to stay … but how do I do that? And then there is my life in Michigan.”
“The life you either dismantle, or the life you rebuild.”
“I need time to handle things there. And Rhys needs time for his girls to mature. I love that he’s such a devoted father. But the girls are going through things, and I can’t just barge in and take over.”
“I would think he’d understand.”
“He thinks I’m rejecting him.”
“Are you?”
“It won’t work right now, not the way Jillian is feeling.”
“So right guy, wrong time.”
“Pretty much.”
Cara leaned back. “Then maybe the best thing you can do is go home. Catch your breath. Remember what your own life looks like without him in it.”
Cat looked out the window. The rolling lawn a ghostly white. “That sounds sensible,” she said quietly, rising. “And incredibly painful.”
Cara stood and gave Cat a hug. “Please stay in touch,” she said, “and let me know what happens.”
*
Cat walked briskly back to the cottage, wrapping her navy scarf tighter, her breath little clouds on the air.
Her job here was done. The girls would be back in school soon.
Tomorrow, the Harmon house in London would fill with noise and laughter, and the professional wonderful Charlotte who knew how to manage everything would return two days later.