Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
PIPER
Monday morning, I got the quote and some good news from Eric Nash, the local upholsterer. With my updated design, he’d be able to complete the furnishings for the ski lodge within six weeks. I knocked on Rhett’s doorframe and poked my head into his office.
“Upholsterer is a go,” I reported. “Under budget, too.”
“Good. Fabric?”
“Needs to be sourced by the end of the week. I’ve got a line on a wholesaler outside Denver; I’m about to follow up.”
“Good work,” Rhett said, and I couldn’t quite hide the glow of pride that rose within me.
From there, the madness began. Work at the lodge ramped up, and it was all I could do to work on procuring what we needed in order to hit the opening date at the end of the year.
It didn’t help that shipping to a small mountain town was sometimes iffy, and that the holiday season was about to start. But I put my head down and did my best.
Evenings were taken up with the boys, dinner, homework, and housework.
Once they were in bed, I gave myself the time to take three deep breaths, and then I dove into the Lovers Lane house design.
On the weekend, I took a trip up to the house with the boys and set them loose in the backyard.
There was a dumpster sitting out front, which hadn’t been there last time. Rhett had been busy too.
With a spray bottle of water in one hand, I climbed up on the kitchen counter and got to work soaking the wallpaper border.
Ten minutes later, with intermittent peeks through the window above the sink to make sure the boys were still both in one piece, I took a paint scraper and got to work removing the softened wallpaper.
That was how Rhett found me an hour later—standing on the counter, clutching the inside of the upper cabinets, reaching up and around to try to get to the faded lemon border, with mixed success.
I glanced over at him, but I’d been in such an awkward position with my head stretched as far back as possible that the movement made me dizzy.
At the same time, I gripped the vertical support at the front of the cabinet to catch myself—and it gave way.
My arms windmilled, but I hardly had time to make a panicked peep before Rhett’s hands went around my waist, and he plucked me off the counter to set me on the ground. He spun me around so I faced him, warm hands still bracketed my middle.
“You got a death wish, Darling?” he growled.
My heart was thumping hard, and I realized I was still holding part of the cabinet that had snapped off. I set it down on the counter behind me and shrugged off his touch. “Thanks for that. You startled me.”
He dropped his hands but didn’t step away. His scent was all around me, and the intensity of his stare made me want to squirm. “If this is going to work,” he said, “you’re going to need to follow a few safety guidelines. Like using a proper ladder.”
I bit my bottom lip and looked up at him. “I might have gotten carried away,” I conceded. “The boys are occupied, so I wanted to get as much done as possible while I had the time. And I don’t have a ladder.”
“Have you got a phone?” His voice was dark, and he still stood a little too close.
I frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Next time, you use the phone to call me so I can bring you a ladder, Darling.”
“Fine. I didn’t realize you cared so much.”
Rhett’s eyes slid away from mine as he cleared his throat. “If you break your neck trying to fix up this house, it’ll be terrible PR for me,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” I replied sardonically. “That would be so sad for you.”
“I don’t know how I could recover.”
“You’d find a way,” I said, and patted his chest in mock sympathy.
That was a mistake.
The moment my hand touched his chest, the temperature in the kitchen spiked.
The air buzzed around us, and Rhett took a half step closer to cage me against the cabinets.
My heart felt like a trapped bird. My hand dropped from his chest, but it didn’t matter.
He was so close that his thighs brushed mine, and when he moved his hand up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, all I wanted to do was lean into the touch.
Then he said the worst possible thing he could have said. In a low voice, he murmured, “I don’t want you to get hurt, Piper.”
Yearning rose up within me with such speed that I had to grip the countertop to stay steady. A boulder lodged itself in my throat, and I stared at the open neck of Rhett’s jacket to try to gather my wits.
I could deal with him when he was arrogant and charming and wearing that fake, man-of-the-people smile.
It was easy to keep him at arm’s length, to dismiss the force of his presence and the reaction my body had to him.
When he acted like that—the way he acted most of the time, around most people—Rhett was just another man who thought he could do what he wanted, when he wanted.
But when he looked at me like this, with concern and tenderness that seemed far too genuine, it knocked me off-balance and made me remember that I was all alone.
I’d been alone for a long time.
The divorce, the custody battle, the move—all of it had felt like taking a little dinghy out to the open ocean and asking the heavens to batter me with storm after storm.
But I’d gotten through it, because I knew it was for the best. I drew on my own strength, my own energy reserves, and I poured everything I had into making sure my boys were okay.
I would be the strong, stable support that they needed.
I would make sure they didn’t grow up in a house with parents who hated each other.
I would be a role model, and I’d make sure they were happy, healthy, and thriving.
But I’d done it alone. I’d had no choice.
And before that, I’d been alone in my marriage.
I’d fought and begged and wheedled to make Jacob into a partner.
I’d tried playing by his rules to see if he’d finally respect me.
I tried pushing back and taking up more space.
I tried asking for help and going on housework strikes.
None of it worked. He never looked at me and said, You’re worth the effort. I want to make this work. I love you.
Now my boss, a man who wore a thousand faces depending on the situation, his audience, and his mood, was making me feel vulnerable and raw. I couldn’t stand it.
My boys saved me once again, just like they’d saved me from staying in a bad marriage by pushing me to want better for them. This time, it wasn’t anything so dramatic. They simply burst through the back door, bearing treasures they’d found in the backyard.
“Mom!” Alec cried. “We found stuff for my diorama project!”
“Show me,” I said, slithering away from Rhett to go to my sons. They held out their treasures—pine cones, sticks, various leaves, a bit of moss—and Alec explained how he planned to arrange it.
“I need a box, Mom,” he said. “Did you find one?”
In the move, I’d gotten rid of all the old shoeboxes that had been hanging around the house.
Everything that hadn’t been absolutely necessary had been tossed.
We’d moved to Lovers Peak without much more than a few suitcases.
“I’ll find you one,” I told him. “Maybe we can stop at a shoe store in town and see if they have any they can give us.”
“I’ve got a shoebox,” Rhett said from behind me.
The boys perked up. “Really?” Alec asked, brightening.
“Yeah. I should have some glue in my toolbox too. You could get started on your project while your mom and I work on the house.”
“Can I help with the house?” Nate asked.
“How’s the arm feeling?” Rhett asked in response, nodding to the sling strapping Nate’s forearm to his chest. His ankle had healed within a few days, but the cast would stay for a while yet.
“It’s fine,” Nate replied, all bravado. “I can help.”
“All right. We’ll find something for you to do,” Rhett replied. “Come on. And you, Darling,” he said, flicking those dark eyes over to meet mine, “you can grab my ladder from the back of the truck.”
I pursed my lips, but I was still feeling shaky and didn’t trust myself to respond. The four of us tromped outside in single file, and then Nate and Alec ran ahead toward Rhett’s truck. I called at them to slow down so close to the road, but it was Rhett who took charge and wrangled them properly.
“Alec, I need your help with this while I dig out that shoebox,” he said, handing items out of the back of the cab for Alec to hold. “Nate,” he said, “see that bucket up there in the truck bed?” He waited for Nate to nod. “See if you can grab it, but don’t knock your arm.”
The boys jumped to do as he said, and within minutes, Alec had his shoebox and Nate had a bucket that came up above his knee. They stood at attention while Rhett took off the ratchet straps holding down his ladder and retrieved his toolbox.
I watched, and for just a moment, I saw Rhett in a different light.
When he wasn’t trying to ingratiate himself with everyone, he was magnetic.
He grinned at Nate and ruffled Alec’s hair, and the boys glowed under his attention.
Nate told him his current favorite joke (Knock knock!
Who’s there? Atish. Atish who? Bless you!) and Rhett laughed in that unguarded, genuine way that sent shivers all the way down to my toes.
“Help me with this ladder, Darling,” he said, and the two of us carried the ladder inside while the boys ran ahead.
Rhett had his toolbox in his other hand, which he set down by the front door before taking the ladder from my grasp.
He unfolded it and set it up where I’d been standing on the counters, then looked at Nate, who was wandering around, still holding that bucket.
“You’re with me, kid,” he said. “You think you can carry that bucket up and down the stairs?”
“Duh,” Nate replied.
“I want to carry the bucket,” Alec complained, clutching the shoebox under his arm. He’d stashed his finds from the forest in the box.
“You can take turns,” Rhett replied, and the three of them went up the stairs and into the bathroom that Rhett had begun demolishing last time we were at the house together.
I followed, peeking over the top of the stair banister to see Rhett handing work gloves to the kids before filling the bucket up partway and sending Nate down the stairs with it, with instructions to toss it into the dumpster out front.
I made a few trips of my own with the scraps of wallpaper border, watching the boys hump it over and back, up the porch stairs, up to the second floor, and back down in a steady stream. They laughed and chatted, their voices underpinned by Rhett’s low rumble for the next two hours.
When the wallpaper border was completely removed, I wiped my forehead with the back of my wrist and leaned against the kitchen cabinets.
Alec and Nate were heading back inside and rushing up the stairs, and Rhett greeted them warmly before the sound of drywall hitting the plastic bucket sounded from above.
The house felt alive. I felt alive.
That night, Nate and Alec ate a gigantic dinner and fell into bed, exhausted. As I closed the door to their room, I made a note to thank Rhett properly.