Chapter 10 Rachel
TEN
RACHEL
ISAAC - MADONNA
I tugged the blanket higher around my shoulders as I sank into the armchair in my bedroom.
Reaching for the tea I’d placed on the stand beside me, which I’d perched next to the leather box Rex had given me for my birthday, I took a sip as I flicked through the channels, finally settling on an episode of 90 Day Fiancé, but I couldn’t focus on it.
This morning, I’d woken up to the belated birthday gift outside my door.
Tucked in the card, there’d been an explanation that it was a memory box.
Memories… They were what goddamn plagued me.
Gaze drifting from the box, I peered out onto the pitch-black hill ahead of me. Spying the city lights in the distance, I watched a couple of cars moving here and there, and I tried to find comfort in the humdrum.
It didn’t work.
Everything was changing.
This year, more than any other, I’d been feeling the passage of time, and that was before I’d learned I was pregnant and that Bear had asked Rex to help him die.
Rain was graduating, he’d be heading out into the big, bad world, and I’d be left here.
Alone.
Watching Rex from a distance.
Wishing things were different.
Knowing they couldn’t be.
Until today, I’d thought about moving into the city.
My NGO work often had me heading into New York City, never mind the clients I had that were incapable of keeping themselves out of trouble.
But another baby…
Even if I knew I shouldn’t be a mother, I was point blank incapable of giving up another child.
I tried to let the infusion of chamomile soothe me, but it wasn’t a magical potion and couldn’t wipe the slate clean—if only it could.
“Change isn’t always a bad thing, Rachel,” Axel, my stepdad, used to tell me when I was younger.
He wasn’t wrong, but neither was he right.
These types of changes were never good.
Staring out onto West Orange, an urge hit me.
It wasn’t an odd one. Since Rex had moved into my house, I often fought this particular desire, but tonight, it was harder to battle.
Harder to stay here.
Harder to ignore.
Making sure both my private and business cellphones were switched off—it was goddamn Christmas Eve; my clients and the few friends I had could wait until tomorrow if there was a problem—I drifted to my feet as that urge continued plaguing me. Like an itch I couldn’t stop myself from scratching.
I headed downstairs, my destination the dining room. Only, it was in the dark—Rex wasn’t there.
Checking out the other rooms on the first floor, I saw they were also empty apart from one of the dens where Nyx and Giulia were doing only God knew what. They were quiet though. The TV was on, its lights flickering beneath the door, but it wasn’t blaring, so I left them to it.
On any other day, I’d have taken this as a sign. I’d have gone into my office and used work to push the thoughts away, to shove my need aside, but this was today.
I returned upstairs and headed for his room.
Knocking on the door heralded nothing, and while I could tell there were no lights on, I pushed it open anyway.
As quietly as a mouse, I closed the door with the faintest snick then padded into the room before I took in the lay of the land.
His breathing was heavy enough that I knew he was sleeping, so I shuffled over to the bed, knowing he’d be on the side nearest to the door, and I climbed on top of it with him.
He didn’t stir, which spoke of his exhaustion, and I sighed as the scent of him hit me hard.
Every drop of air I inhaled smelled of him, and his warmth leached into me, filling me with him in a way that had me curling onto my side and snuggling close.
We’d not often slept together.
Not like this.
Not for years, either.
God, it felt good.
So good.
He stirred on the sheets when I pressed my face against his arm and breathed, “Rachel.”
It wasn’t a question.
Wasn’t even a statement.
It was a soft sigh.
A sleepy one.
I closed my eyes, rubbed my nose against his flannel-covered bicep, and wished that things were different. Wished that I weren’t me. Wished that I—
Clenching my teeth a second, I forced myself to relax and whispered, “I’m here, Rex. I’m here.”
He didn’t answer.
Why would he?
He was fast asleep.
He needed the rest too, so I didn’t disturb him.
I just lay there.
For hours.
Thoughts crawled sluggishly through my mind, tumbling one after another, tiring me out but not letting me sleep.
Minutes or hours later, I heard Nyx and Giulia shushing each other as they climbed the stairs and returned to their bedroom.
When dawn began its approach, I heard Rain get up and the shower start in his bathroom. I even heard when he went downstairs and left for the job he had as a server at one of the local country clubs where he’d be waiting tables for the Christmas feast.
Once he’d left, the house was serene again.
When Rex finally awoke, I didn’t bother moving. Not even when I felt him jolt in surprise at my presence here.
“Rachel?” he croaked tiredly.
I just hummed.
“What are you doing here?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
He didn’t answer, but moved his arm and I settled deeper into his warmth. Sighing as it leached into me, I whispered miserably, “I miss you.”
“I miss you,” he whispered back. But he didn’t sound miserable. Just worn-out.
So worn-out.
Tears pricked my eyes, tears that only formed because I was exhausted too, and I nuzzled into him, seeking and giving comfort the only way I could.
“I miss ‘my girl,’” he rasped. “I miss touching you without it being complicated. I miss the Rach who’d laugh and tell me I was an asshole instead of just looking at me like I’m crap on her shoes. I miss not being frozen out by you. I miss you.”
I could have argued, but what was the point?
“I haven’t been her for years,” was all I said.
“No. You’re in there. The real you is. She’s just frozen. Encapsulated in ice. One day, I know you’ll defrost. One day, I know you’ll be back.”
Something quickened inside me at his words, and it filled me with enough courage to ask, “Will you stick around for me?”
Breathless, I waited for his answer, but when he gave it to me, I cringed, deep inside.
“Always. I didn’t leave, Rachel.”
I gulped at his emphasis on the word ‘I.’
Another time, another day, another week, I might have raged at him. Drowned him out with hissed words that left lacerations behind, but today, no. Not with Bear’s impending death looming ahead of us. Not with the baby in my belly settling in for the duration.
“No,” I admitted softly, “I know you didn’t.”
A sigh drifted from his lips as he pressed them to the crown of my head. It was only then that I realized he’d been braced for bitter words that would have burned like acid, and I sighed as, hesitantly, I placed my hand to his stomach and rested it there.
His was the only man’s body I knew well. That I knew how to tease and how to taunt. How to torment and to tantalize. But approaching him was like approaching a lion and wondering if you’d get bitten. He might not maul me, but he could destroy me all the same.
My defenses, my walls, were barriers that protected me.
Not only from him, but from everyone.
The world.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked as he tilted me into him so that I was leaning against him too and he could settle his chin on my head.
What the hell was I supposed to say to that?
How about the baby we’d given up for adoption years ago was turning seventeen in four days’ time and, as a birthday present to myself, I found out I was pregnant again?
How about the fact his dad wanted to die?
How about Bear wanted Rex to do the job for him because he couldn’t?
My tension levels were on the rise when he continued, “Jesus, something really is wrong. I expected you to jump off the bed and slap me, not start shivering in my arms, Rach.”
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t do violence.”
“Liar,” he taunted.
“That was one time.”
He snorted. “Lies.”
“I regretted it the second I did it.”
“I didn’t.”
I blew out a breath. “I didn’t—” I started again. “You shouldn’t—”
“Stop stuttering.”
Pissed, I jerked out of his arms and shoved him in the shoulder. “Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m just lying here,” he retorted, his gaze calm. Much like it always was. “I’m not being a dick. And what was this about not being violent?” He rubbed his shoulder. “You pack a mean punch.”
“Bullshit,” I spat the word at him as I clambered off the bed and started pacing back and forth, well aware that his eyes were on every step I took.
My problem was that I liked being at the center of his attention.
My problem was that he was the only man who could ever get me mad, and who could calm me down.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Kade Nunez?”
I jolted to a halt. “What?!”
Why in the hell was he asking me about the Long Beach Butcher now?
He folded his arms behind his head. “You heard me, Rach.”
“I did, but I want to know why you’re asking.”
His focus was measured, but as I took him in, every inch of him, I wobbled.
Torn between the past and the future, stuck solidly in the present, I wasn’t sure whether to stare at him or glare at him.
Mind reeling, I rubbed a hand over my face and muttered, “Why do you think?”
“Wouldn’t be asking you if I knew, Rach.”
I squinted at him. “It was an interesting case.”
“And you take on every interesting case that comes your way?”
“Since we agreed, yes.”
His mouth tightened at that, just a sliver. Enough that I knew he was still pissed at how I’d checkmated that agreement out of him.
He didn’t like that I worked for anyone but the MC.
To be precise, him.
I refused to be controlled.
A compromise had been struck after I’d decided to be persuasive. Once I’d paid off my debt to the MC, I’d started making demands of my own, ones he’d eventually conceded to. That was when I’d started my charities and when I’d begun accepting clients who paid me partly in donations.
“Why are you asking about the Long Beach Butcher? That was last year.”
He shrugged. “He’s gotten himself a fiancée. It was in the National Enquirer.”
Snorting, I countered, “Since when do you read the National Enquirer?”
“Something to do when I can’t focus on work or a book. Those fucking beeps in the hospital ward are starting to get to me.”
My throat tightened at that. “It’s called alarm fatigue.”
“I know.” He yawned. “There’s an interesting study about it. This ex-musician was in the ICU and she wanted to create a kind of—” Rex broke off to yawn again.
“You’re tired,” I pointed out unnecessarily.
“Not too tired to talk to you.” He held out a hand. “No fighting. Not today.”
Guilt speared me to the quick.
Arguing was my default. Our default. It made it easier to keep distance between us.
Bracing myself, I stepped over to him and slid my fingers into the clasp of his. The calluses on his palms should have been unattractive, but they weren’t. I knew what they felt like against my body, knew what it felt like to have him brush the tips down my cheek.
I swallowed at the thought and swallowed again when he urged me onto the bed to lie by his side.
As he curled around me, I rolled back into him and let him take my weight.
God, that felt good.
I shuddered as his heat hit me once more and shivered when his hand moved over my stomach.
He had no way of knowing I was pregnant. No way whatsoever. But that he’d hold me there, that he’d unknowingly rest his hand against the place where his baby slept… God help me.
I closed my eyes as tears burned them.
“Will you ever tell me who hurt you?”
The words drifted into the silence of the room. Hell, not only the room, the house.
Much like everything that had happened in the last twelve or so hours, the answer I would ordinarily give him didn’t match my response, “It’ll serve no purpose.”
His tension surged. “So, you finally admit that someone did?”
I let him take even more of my weight, let the flat of my feet press against his shins. I wished he weren’t wearing jeans, so I could feel his body heat directly, but this was better than constantly feeling cold.
“A long time ago,” I told him softly.
“You’re my girl, Rachel,” he rasped back. “Long time ago doesn’t cut it. Can’t cut it.”
“You can’t kill someone who’s already dead,” I pointed out blankly, careful with my phrasing.
His nostrils flared. “Was it brutal?”
I thought about the three men who’d hurt me and I smiled. “Yes.”
He fell quiet again. “One day, when you’re ready, I want answers.”
“Maybe I don’t want to give them to you.” I didn’t bother to tense up, not even when he growled under his breath.
For the first time, wrapped up like this, I was warm and comfortable enough to sleep.
For the first time, a gentle truth registered with me—I wouldn’t need that gun under my pillow if he was in my bed.
It would be under his pillow.
And there’d be a knife somewhere too.
He’d keep me safe.
My eyelids blinked dazedly from exhaustion and I whispered, “Can we go to sleep now?”
“You’ll have nightmares if we sleep like this.”
“Won’t,” I mumbled, already half-asleep.
I didn’t hear him say, softly, sadly, “Yes, baby, you will, and it’ll fucking wreck me when you wake up.”