Four
R heo fast-walked to the stairs, bolted down them, and ran into the kitchen and out the back door. She stumbled onto the path bisecting two beds of sweet-smelling herbs, lavender, rosemary, and lemon verbena. She only knew their names because she’d looked them up.
Stopping at the small paved area halfway down the garden, she placed a hand on one of the four pillars of the wooden gazebo. She’d built the structure a few weeks back, following a YouTube tutorial. Paddy often talked of having one, so Rheo had fought boredom, impatience, and frustration to build her one in the hope it would mollify her grandmother when Rheo fell from grace. She had also bought four concrete pots and planned to plant a gorgeous creeper in each of them—the one with the purple flowers?—so Paddy could sit in the shade on hot summer days.
She was focusing on the gazebo instead of dealing with the problem in front of her. Avoiding the subject was becoming a habit. She’d kissed—no, kissed was too tame a word for what they’d done... inhaled or devoured worked better. She’d devoured Fletcher Wright, and she needed to face her actions and consider the consequences.
Oh God . She’d kissed him.
Not even an hour after first meeting him, she’d plastered her body against his and tried to sink into him. Sure, he’d returned her kiss, but his reaction was, undoubtably, more instinctive. Anyone would respond when a tongue slid into their mouth and a hand drifted over their hard, spectacular ass.
But he did grip the back of her head to keep her mouth in place, tipped it this way and that, looking for the angle he preferred. He’d pushed his thigh between her legs and his other hand had landed low on her butt, encouraging her to ride his cock. He’d fondled her boob.
Arrgh!
Kissing him whipped her away from this house and her mostly solitary, kinda lonely world. In his arms, with her mouth under his, she’d connected to a previously unknown source of cosmic energy. She hummed with vitality.
While she liked feeling strong and energetic, it shouldn’t be a result of kissing some man . Standing next to a pretty white wrought-iron chair, she flapped her arms up and down like a demented duck and shuffled from foot to foot. Her source of energy should come from within herself, not from outside sources!
Porca vacca! Holy cows, pigs, and other barnyard animals!
Rheo linked her hands behind her head and stared at her bare feet, the ring on her middle toe glinting in the sunshine. Right, what should she do? How to handle this? So far today, she’d indulged in some seriously hot eye-on-eye action through her open window, told him he couldn’t stay, told him he could, face-planted on his bedroom floor, and then kissed him as if the future of humanity rested on his broad, muscular shoulders.
Could she be more of an ass if she tried? She doubted it.
Rheo buried her head in her hands, feeling the heat of her face. Dropping into the nearest chair, she placed her elbows on her knees and pushed her fingers into her hair. Future Rheo would refer to this period of her life as “the months of excessive humiliation and stupidity.”
Through high school and college—she’d endured erratic homeschooling before she went to live with Paddy—she kept her head down and played by the rules. She avoided attention, negative or otherwise. She considered every choice she made and tried to figure out how it would impact her safe, reliable, and secure life.
In the last few months, her reliable boyfriend left her, she created the hot-mic viral video, had her translations corrected—twice—cried in front of her colleagues, and was replaced by another translator when she froze during high-level trade negotiations. She’d crossed the country to hide away in her grandmother’s house and was living in it without permission. She was lying to her family, and she’d sucked her grandmother’s short-term tenant into her web of secrecy.
And just because she needed to make a bad situation worse, she’d kissed him.
Brilliant work, Whitlock. Truly inspirational.
Rheo wrinkled her nose. She was behaving like her parents—irresponsibly and impetuously—and was ashamed of herself. She’d fallen into a hole and needed to shovel her way out. Or, simply, she needed to get her shit together. No more excuses, no more dumb decisions. No more kissing strangers. She had minimal time until Carrie arrived. She needed to take a hard look at her life and make some rational, unemotional decisions. Her moment— moments —of madness were over. It was time to act like the reasonable, thoughtful adult she knew she could be.
A lo hecho, pecho. What’s done is done.
She needed to face her mistakes, missteps, and failures. She’d start by telling Fletcher Wright their kiss was a mistake and would not be repeated. She needed to reconfigure her life, whip up another life plan, get her act together. She would not be distracted by a fantastic kisser with big arms, a hard body, and a quirky smile...
But Fletcher Wright had some kissing skills...
Rheo touched her chin and winced. She should clean and disinfect the graze on her chin and forehead, but she wanted to sit here for a little longer. Deep breathing always helped calm her racing mind.
She closed her eyes, tipped her head to the sun, and sucked in another deep breath of the sweet-smelling air. Her heart rate dropped, and her skin stopped prickling. Lust faded away. Unfortunately, her scarlet face would take time to return to normal.
She heard footsteps, and her eyes snapped open. Rheo admired Fletcher’s loose, easy gait as he ambled toward her, one hand wrapped around her flip-flops. Why did he have her shoes? He stopped next to one of the four wooden pillars and their corresponding pots.
Fletcher handed her the beaded flip-flops. “These were lying in a flower bed by the kitchen door, the one with the iceberg roses.”
Her eyebrows rose. “How do you know their name?”
There were red roses and yellow, white, and orange...she didn’t know any of their names. Rheo took the shoes from his hand with a quick “Thanks.”
He shrugged. “My mom was into gardening, roses specifically.”
“Where did you grow up?” she asked, sliding her shoes onto her now grubby feet. “You’re not American born.”
“Scotland, on a smallholding outside Aberdeen.”
His statement explained his accent. Rheo lowered her foot to the paving stones and leaned back in the chair, lifting its two front feet off the ground. Right, he was here, and it was time to bite the bullet.
She waved her hand in the direction of the house. “Kissing...” She hesitated, swallowed, and cleared her throat. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
“You swore, you bolted away, and then, down here, you waved your arms about like a demented chicken. Message received.”
Rheo followed the direction of his pointed finger. His bedroom window overlooked this portion of Paddy’s extensive garden.
More mortification. Marvelous.
“Fletcher, I—”
“Call me Fletch, everyone does,” he said, interrupting her.
She nodded her agreement. “My life is complicated, and while I enjoyed kissing you, I’m not in a position to take it any further.”
He sent a small, cool smile. “Did I ask you to?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “I just didn’t want you thinking—”
“I only met you a short while ago, Rheo, but I already know you think too much.” He held up his hand in a silent request for her not to speak.
She narrowed her eyes and waved her hand in a silent gesture for him to continue.
“Firstly, you apologized earlier for kissing me. I was as into it as you, and if I didn’t want to kiss you, I wouldn’t have.”
Okay, that wasn’t what she expected. Also, very direct. But she far preferred someone being straightforward than glitter-covered bullshit.
“Secondly, it was only a kiss , not a request to take you to bed or anything else.”
His Relax, you’re making a big deal out of nothing was implied, as loud as if he’d screamed it in her ear.
She dropped the legs of her chair to the ground and shot to her feet. She’d heard so many versions of “relax,” “stop overthinking,” and her favorite, “you’re far too sensitive” all her life. The accusation, verbal or not, was a hot-button issue for her and a trigger, instantly reminding her of how different she was from her family and how isolated and lonely she’d felt as a child. How she sometimes—more lately than usual—still felt.
Rheo wanted nothing more than to walk into the house—to go back to New York and her lovely, safe apartment—but before she could, he moved, about to lean his shoulder into a pillar. She threw out her hand, shouting a warning, but his shoulder connected, and the rickety gazebo creaked and swayed. One minute Rheo stood under the roof, the next she was a few steps away, watching the wooden beams tumble to the ground, cracking and splitting as they hit the chairs and concrete slab.
Rheo stared at what was now a huge, messy pile of oversized kindling and wanted to cry. She’d worked so hard on the gazebo, sweating as she sawed, hitting her thumb with the hammer, dropping wooden planks on her shoulder and once on her head. And with one touch of a masculine shoulder, it disintegrated. Okay, she knew it wasn’t the most solid structure in the world, but she didn’t expect it to fall apart like a pile of pickup sticks.
“Who the hell built that?” Fletch demanded, furious. He held her against him— nice! —and she was half off her feet. He’d pushed her out of the way of the tumbling structure and saved her from a serious injury.
She was still processing that reality when Fletch dropped his arm and stepped away from her to kick the plank closest to him. He picked up a concrete pot lying on its side and banged it down on its base. Rheo grimaced. He was properly furious.
“Do you realize how lucky you were? What if it fell when nobody was here with you?” he demanded.
It wasn’t a scenario she wanted to think about. Rheo considered asking him whether he could stand up straight for more than five minutes, but decided it wasn’t a good time. But why did he always have to lean?
“The posts should’ve been anchored to the ground with cement.” Fletch picked up the end of a beam and inspected a bent nail with disgust. “These should’ve been bolted in, not hammered together with nails.” He glared at her. “Didn’t you notice it was rickety?”
Well, yes. She’d had her doubts it would survive when a storm had blown through last week, but it did, so she decided it was fine. To be on the safe side, she’d placed the pots next to each beam to keep them straight and give the pillars extra support.
“I have never come across such shoddy, amateurish workmanship in my life,” Fletch railed. “Why do something if you aren’t going to do it properly?”
Because she was an amateur? Because she didn’t have the first clue about carpentry? Because she was scared of her grandmother, was terrified of disappointing her, and thought a gazebo might make up for her mistakes?
“You need to call the carpenter and demand your money back,” Fletch snapped, scowling at the pile of wood.
Now that her adrenaline was subsiding, a bubble of laughter crawled up Rheo’s throat. “I can’t do that,” Rheo told him, her voice shaky.
“Why the hell not?” Fletch demanded, still looking pissed off.
It was time to come clean. About this, anyway. “Because I built it.”
Rheo walked into the kitchen, shoes back on her feet, and headed for her coffee machine. It was one of the few appliances she’d had shipped from the Brooklyn apartment she’d sublet on a month-to-month lease to the translator who’d stepped into her shoes when she’d left.
The woman had her job and her apartment, the life she’d so carefully created.
Rheo could get it back.
She just needed to get her ass into gear and get back to the organized, rational person she’d been six months ago.
So much easier said than done...
Rheo shoved a cup under the spout of her coffee machine and used the back of her hand to hit the button dispensing magic juice. Coffee-scented steam hit her nose as she carried the cup over to the enormous wooden dining table, one end covered in books and magazines.
Sitting on one of the twelve mismatched chairs around the table, she cradled her cup in her hands and wondered how to act when Fletch returned to the kitchen. She wished she could be sophisticated and oozing with sangfroid, but it wasn’t her style. When working, listening, translating, speaking, and listening again, she was a machine, but she’d left her conversational skills in Brooklyn.
Rheo rested her forehead on the wooden table. What lesson was life trying to teach her? And why wasn’t she getting it? It would be so much easier if life or God or the universe would just post directions on Instagram or TikTok.
Rheo! Plan the work and work the plan...
You are saving less than fifteen percent of your take-home salary, Rheo! Fix this now!
Turn off your mic when the general assembly isn’t in session...
“Mind if I grab a cup?”
Rheo jerked. Fletcher stood in the doorway, filling the space with his bulk. Rheo tipped her head to the side. He really was the most gorgeous specimen.
When Fletcher frowned, Rheo realized she was staring...again. Please start acting like a rational human being, Whitlock.
She recalled his question and lifted her cup to point it at the coffee machine. “Help yourself. I’m not sure if there’s milk, but the sugar is in the blue canister on the shelf above your head.” Right, good job sounding completely normal.
Now carry on in the same vein, Rheo.
“Where are the mugs?”
Of course. A mug would be helpful. “In the cupboard above the coffee machine.”
Rheo watched him take a pottery mug from the cupboard, one of her favorites, and place it under the spout. He pushed the start button and turned to face her, leaning his butt against the counter, his feet in well-worn hiking boots, crossed at the ankles. A hot guy was hanging out in her grandmother’s kitchen...
Fletch’s eyes met hers, and she caught the hesitation on his face. His eyes, no longer shot with lust, were now a matte, impenetrable, seaweed green. Unreadable.
“Can I make a suggestion?”
She lifted her eyebrows and waited. Rheo fully expected a lecture on gazebo construction, everything she did wrong, and why it collapsed. She hoped he’d keep it to under ten minutes.
“For the sake of yourself, your grandmother, and anyone else in your life, please stay far away from power tools, wood, and anything that requires construction. Someone, you , could’ve been seriously injured. Just pay someone next time, okay?” he added, his eyes and expression serious.
That was all he had to say on the subject? She’d take it, and God knew, his comments were more than fair.
“Okay.”
His expression reflected his surprise at her lack of argument. She lifted one shoulder to her ear. “I’m just glad it happened now and not later with Paddy. I fully accept I have the DIY skills of a goat.”
“But you can translate four languages expertly and can get by in another two. We all have different skills. But yours will never be woodwork.” A small smile accompanied his words and he turned his attention back to the coffee machine. “Why did you even attempt to build it in the first place?”
Rheo easily recalled Paddy going on and on about wanting a pretty gazebo in a wild garden after a vacation in England when Rheo was twelve and thought it might go some way in earning her forgiveness for her lack of transparency (i.e., the illegal occupation of her house). She’d looked online, wineglass in hand, bottle close by, and within a few hours had not only ordered the plans for an elegant structure, but also the equipment and materials she needed. The next morning, seeing the dent she’d made in her credit card, she’d felt obligated to attempt to build it herself.
Not her finest moment.
“A bottle of wine and spending too much on my credit card made me overconfident,” she informed Fletch.
He didn’t pursue the subject, and she was grateful. She didn’t want to discuss her complicated relationship with her family and her need for Paddy’s approval.
Maybe they could talk about the weather. Or Gilmartin.
“So why don’t you want Carrie to know you are here? Where are you supposed to be?”
His questions sliced through the space between them and landed on her skin, hot and unexpected. The words took a moment to sink in. Her coffee machine made its customary rude belch and dripped a few more drops into his cup. Fletch picked up the cup, took a sip, and joined her at the table, stretching out his long legs.
She cleared her throat. How should she answer his question? She couldn’t, obviously, tell him she’d been at odds with her family for as long as she could recall or that she was the drab cuckoo in a nest of brightly colored macaws. Unlike her, he clearly didn’t wrestle with the world, and didn’t need to fight for his place in it. He seemed happy in his skin. Would anything faze him? She couldn’t imagine him feeling insecure or being able to understand the uncertainty of always standing on the outside looking in.
She eventually answered him. “It’s complicated.”
“Aren’t families always complicated?” he replied before lifting his cup. “Great coffee, by the way.”
It was a monthly delivery from a specialist coffee shop in Brooklyn. “Kenyan. It’s a blend I stumbled across a few years ago.”
“I like it,” he stated, looking past her counters and through the back door onto her garden. “The garden is magnificent. Your work?”
Ah, he’d noticed he’d hit a nerve and was attempting to make her feel comfortable. Sweet of him. And it was working. “God, no . I once tried to grow herbs in pots on my foot-wide balcony in Brooklyn, but I never remembered to water them. And I don’t cook.”
Amusement jumped into his eyes. “Right. You live in Brooklyn?” he asked.
“Yeah, up until four months ago. I’m hoping to go back soon, if I can work my way through the madness of the last few months.”
He tapped a blunt finger on the rim of his mug and pounced on her statement. “What happened?”
Rheo pulled a face. Why had she said that? She wasn’t in the habit of blabbing about her work screwups. Wasn’t in the habit of confiding in strangers, period. But Fletch didn’t feel like a stranger. Not now and not when they’d kissed. Indescribably delicious, he’d sent blood flowing to parts of her she’d long forgotten. Despite never having met him before, she recognized him. Being in his arms, her mouth under his, felt right. Normal.
Wild! She didn’t believe in instant connections, nor did she believe in love at first sight. Coup de foudre was French romanticism. Magnetism and desire she understood, as they were biological impulses, but wandering off into Romance Land was silly.
And she wasn’t silly. She was practical and pragmatic, a planner. Anything but silly.
Needing to change the subject, Rheo tossed out a question, hoping his answer would assuage her curiosity. “So, what work do you do for Carrie, Fletcher?”
He sent her a low, slow smile, the mental equivalent of being dipped into a vat of rich, warm, silky dark chocolate. She loved dark chocolate...
“Why do you think I work for Carrie?”
Um...she was sure there was a reason. Oh, right. “Earlier you said you’d worked as a sound guy and a cameraman.”
“I have, but not for Carrie,” he told her. “I make my own documentaries.”
Great. Fletch being someone who flitted around the world, exploring, documenting his travels, made complete sense. She’d felt the wildness in him earlier. Another nomad.
That he and Carrie were friends didn’t surprise her. Carrie avoided nine-to-five men and held a great deal of disdain for anyone who wore a suit and worked set hours—Rheo especially. Corporate men bored Carrie. She always said they were insanely tedious, and she’d rather hook up with a store mannequin. Since Rheo enjoyed set hours, loved coming home to the same apartment, and knew what her next week, month, and year looked like, she took exception to her cousin’s statements.
Carrie didn’t give a rat’s ass whether she was offended or not.
“What’s your show called?” Rheo asked, mostly to be polite. She wasn’t into watching anyone wandering around old cities, eating street food, and taking in the tourist attractions. Occasionally doing a bungee jump or zipping from tree to tree.
“My most recent one is A Year in the Jungle . A Year in Ice and Snow will be released in a few months.”
She’d never heard of them and told him so. Fletcher shrugged and didn’t seem annoyed that she’d never seen his work. Unlike Carrie, who thought everyone should watch her being brilliant.
“They have a bit of a following with people who like adventure. I’ve done some hardcore expeditions.”
She wrinkled her nose. According to Carrie, most adventure/travel content creators weren’t half as tough as they claimed to be. “So, do you only pretend to sleep in a tent and sneak off to sleep in a big double bed in the nearest five-star hotel?”
Fletcher took another sip of his coffee and smiled. “There weren’t any five-star hotels where I went.” He stood and nodded to her cup. “Would you like a refill?”
Grateful he’d asked, she nudged her cup in his direction. Fletcher turned away and Rheo looked at his broad back and spectacular ass. It took a lot of time and effort to get as fit and as strong as he was. Unlike her. If she was ever found dead in a gym or on a jogging trail, the most likely explanation was that she’d been murdered elsewhere and her body dumped.
Fletch turned back to face her, his expression imperturbable. “So, I guess we should discuss us living together for the next week or so.”
Rheo thanked him for her coffee. “Why is Carrie coming here?” Carrie put everything on social media, including a rough schedule of where she’d be and what she’d be doing, frequently reminding her followers that she was a free spirit and liable to change her mind at any second. Since she was heading for Gilmartin sometime soon, that meant caving in Vietnam must be on hold. “I thought she had a full schedule until the end of the year.”
“She said she needs a break and wants to recharge. All the stuff we like to do for fun—hiking, trail bike riding, and free climbing—is easily accessible here. As I mentioned, we also want to kayak the Little White Salmon.”
“Sounds fun,” she lied.
He hit her with a don’t bullshit me stare. “Why don’t you want Carrie to know you’re here, and how do you intend to explain your presence when she gets here?”
Because we don’t speak much. Because I didn’t tell her or my parents I had a meltdown. Because we have different worldviews.
Rheo didn’t have any idea of how she was going to explain her presence in the house. Yet.
Rheo answered his last question and ignored the rest. “I’ll just tell her I made an impulsive trip to check on the place.” She shrugged, knowing he wouldn’t believe her breezy reply. Fletch looked laidback and easygoing, but his eyes moved constantly, taking in data and processing it.
“Why do I suspect you don’t do anything on impulse and your trips are planned months in advance?”
Ugh, he made her sound too straitlaced. “I can be impulsive,” she retorted. “I’ve made last-minute trips. I can be spontaneous.”
She hoped he didn’t ask her for dates and times, because she knew she couldn’t back up her heated statement.
“When?” he countered, moving her mug so she didn’t knock it over with her waving hands.
His eyebrows lifted and she caught the challenge in his gaze. She wasn’t someone who played games—she preferred to walk away from confrontation, especially when she was out of her depth. But something about this big, bold man made her want to go toe to toe with him.
“When were you last impulsive, Rheo?” he pushed.
“When I kissed you twenty minutes ago!”
Rheo bit her bottom lip, shocked she’d let those words fly. She normally enjoyed complete command over what left her mouth; it was the way she earned her living. She always chose the right words, the appropriate words. Well, mostly. With one or two major exceptions.
Fletcher lifted his mug and looked at her over the rim, his eyes boring into hers. She held her breath, waiting for his reply. She stood on the edge of a golden, electrified cliff, teetering, about to fall into a miles-deep chasm. He made her feel , and Rheo didn’t like it.
Emotions could be very annoying.
“We did kiss,” Fletcher replied in a nothing-out-of-the-ordinary-here voice. “I definitely didn’t anticipate liking it so much.”
Rheo sucked in her breath and planted her ass on the chair and her feet on the floor. He looked as tense as she felt. They both understood that if they moved, their clothes would start flying and Paddy’s table would see some action.
Knowing what the rest of her family were capable of, Rheo was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the first time.
Fletcher ran his hands over his face.
“You being Carrie’s cousin complicates things,” Fletcher quietly stated after a long silence. “I think it would be better if we ignore our chemistry so there’s no... awkwardness when she arrives.”
Because, sure, the world would stop if Carrie experienced some awkwardness. And of course there would be awkwardness; there always was when she and Carrie occupied the same room. They were oil and water.
But it didn’t matter. She had no intention of sleeping with Fletch. Sorting her life out was a priority; having sex wasn’t. She was crunched for time and couldn’t waste her mental energy on a man.
“I agree,” Rheo said.
And if she had any I’d like to share the sheets with you thoughts while she worked out what to do or where to go, she’d just ignore them.
Fletch nodded, walked over to the fridge, and pulled open the door. He looked back at her, a little horrified. “Rheo, something is growing in your fridge.”
Rheo looked at the container in his hand, and through the clear plastic, she saw bubbles of black-and-green mold. Eeeww . She’d bought the cheese from Abi, never ate it, and forgot to take it out. She existed on pizza, takeout, and microwave meals, and because she didn’t drink milk, she rarely went into the fridge.
“I’m going to have to buy some food,” he said, sounding perturbed.
“Don’t let me stop you,” she told him. “There’s a great deli on Main Street that’s owned by my friend Abi, and the store around the corner stocks pretty much everything.”
“What do you live on?” Fletch demanded, dumping the cheese into the trash can and turning to the sink to wash his hands. “Fresh air?”
Rheo gestured to a door behind her. “In the walk-in pantry, there’s a chest freezer stocked with meals Abi makes. I’m a genius at peeling, pricking, and pinging. And I’m great at ordering takeout.”
Fletcher closed his eyes and shook his head. “To thank you for letting me stay, I’ll cook and you’ll eat.”
No problem there, given that she possessed the domestic skills of a houseplant. “Deal. Are you a good cook?” she asked, curious.
Fletcher sent her a get real look. “Since you only have moldy cheese and a couple of cans of soda in your fridge, I can only be better than you.”
Excellent point.