9. Rhys
Chapter nine
Rhys
R hys could see her thinking hard about the bombshell he dropped, and he half expected her to backpedal her declaration of love. It was all he could do to keep from bursting into tears when she encouraged him to keep talking.
I don’t know what I did to deserve you—but I’m glad I did it.
“When you messaged me, I figured Katerina had come back and you needed a hand getting rid of her. I went down to the shop, but you weren’t there. Then I let myself in, using my key.” Her eyes widened at the implications of his words. “It’s the only time I’ve ever used it.”
He could see her mind putting the pieces together. “So, you—”
“I bought the store off Claire,” he interrupted, “using money the Army paid me when I was injured. But getting back to earlier… I worked out your computer password, saw the page about Rattlesnake Ridge, and figured that was where you probably were.”
“And Katerina?” She gestured for him to keep moving with the story. “What happened there?”
“I was just about to leave to come and find you, when I caught her and her new assistant coming into your shop to try and steal information about your suppliers.” She gasped, but he kept going. “The sheriff took them in for questioning, and it seems Katerina is wanted by a few different agencies for her dodgy business practices.”
“So let me get this straight,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. “Part of my brain is telling me that you’re actually my landlord, you’ve had a key to my apartment the whole time, you hacked your way into my computer, then got my old boss arrested.”
“Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound great,” he admitted.
“The other part of my brain is doing a happy dance because you gave me the means to open my dream store, you’ve only ever used the key when I was in grave danger, you caught a criminal who tried to hurt my business, and then you rescued me from certain death in the mountains.”
“That’s a very gracious way of looking at it, yes.”
She was silent again for a long moment. His back hurt from sitting at an odd angle on the sofa, but he didn’t dare move. Whatever she said next might make or break the fragile progress they’d made over the last ten hours since she asked him for help.
“I want you to give the key to Claire for safekeeping until we’re ready to move in together. I’m going to change my computer password, and it’ll be one you can’t guess. And I want us to come up with a plan to ensure the store is profitable while also giving you some return on your investment. Katerina might not be able to get her hands on it now, but I don’t want anyone else thinking they can try, either.”
“I can do all those things,” he whispered, still in disbelief that she hadn’t walked out of the house or called the sheriff on him.
“And then,” she continued, “we’re going to start again on this relationship. Proper dates—not just working together, but the kind where you give me advance notice of what we’re doing and where we’re going, so I can prepare appropriately. No more secrets, unless it’s about birthday presents. And no buying property without me knowing. We’re in this together.”
“Together... I like the sound of that.” He ran his thumbs gently over her knuckles and was rewarded with a smile.
“I do have one more question though.”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know. No more secrets, remember?”
“When we were up on the mountain last night, you kept saying something to me and I didn’t quite catch it. It sounded like mo here—is that right?”
“Ah.” He reached for one of the bags of Valentine’s Day candy, and poked around until he found what he was looking for. “It was this.”
She looked at the words stamped on the candy heart. “My heart?”
“Aye. Mo cuishle is what I called you last night. It means my heart, in Gaelic. I love you so much, Bree.”
“I love you too,” she whispered. “Now do you think there’s one in there that says ‘kiss me softly’?”
Although he was only too happy to comply, it wasn’t long before Brianna’s eyelids started to droop.
“Come on, let’s get you up to bed.” He stood up slowly, and held his hand out, letting her use him as an anchor to pull herself up from the sofa. She was still sore, but it seemed to be easing, and he knew from experience that a good sleep would help.
“Are you coming too?”
He chuckled quietly as he followed her slowly up the stairs to his room above the garage. “In the last thirty-six hours I’ve caught your old boss trying to steal from you, and rescued you from a mountainside. Every time I let you out of my sight, something seems to happen to you. So yes, I’m coming with you.”
“What if I don’t want to nap?” She stood by the bed and tried to wink, but ended up yawning instead.
“Nap first, then we can see how you feel afterwards. I’ll find you a clean t-shirt to sleep in.”
She disappeared into his bathroom to shower and change, and he made sure his earbuds were within reach of the bed. Until she knew about the nightmares, he wouldn’t risk drifting off next to her—although between his current audiobook and his body’s reaction to having her so close, sleep would have been a long time coming anyway.
He was into his third hour of the audiobook when she woke up. He hoped he’d never forget the slow smile that stretched across her face when she realized she was lying in his bed, wearing his t-shirt. If he wasn’t mistaken, she even surreptitiously sniffed his pillow before opening her eyes.
Not unlike how I spent the last three hours enjoying the smell of my shampoo in her hair…
“Good… morning?”
He laughed quietly. “Yes, it is still morning—just. How are you feeling?”
“I’m not sure I want to be unpacking boxes or going for a hike today, but I’m not as sore as I expected to be.” She rolled onto one elbow and he saw the same determined look from two days earlier—only this time she had something else in mind. Her hand was halfway towards his scar when he reached out and took it, settling it on his chest.
“I, uh, I thought I should tell you how I got my scar.”
“You really want to tell me now?”
“Not particularly, but you need to know. Not so much because of the scar, but because of what might happen after we sleep together.”
He gave her a quick rundown of the bomb blast that saw him evacuated from Afghanistan, the surgeries afterwards, and the nightmares that didn’t come as often now, but still caused him to wake up drenched in sweat with his mind not fully grounded in reality.
“What should I do if you have a nightmare while we’re together?”
He looked at her in amazement. More than one of his old Army friends slept in separate beds from their partners because of how disturbing the nightmares were, but Brianna was asking how she could help.
“Get out of bed as quietly as you can, stand in the doorway, and call my name. Don’t touch me, because I might think you’re attacking me, and I don’t want to hurt you. Just turn on the hallway light, call my name, and let me wake up on my own.”
“I can do that.” She nodded and he could see her repeating his instructions in her mind. “Does this happen often?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, deciding to go for raw honesty. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone in my bed.”
“Well then.” She smiled and started moving her hand downwards. “Let’s see what happens.”
He was embarrassed about how quickly it was over—he wasn’t joking, it had been a long time—but she didn’t seem at all fazed.
“There is one thing you didn’t tell me earlier,” she said, as she was getting dressed into some of Adelaide’s clothes he found for her. “Why is your company called Cpl Sparky?”
“Sparky was my nickname in the Army, and Corporal was my final rank.” He made a mental note to show her his photos from when he was clean-shaven with the regulation buzz cut. “I got my nickname in my first year in the Army. The handbrake on one of the trucks was sticky, and I didn’t let it off fully before heading out into the field. When I got to my destination, all you could smell was burning rubber, and a couple of the guys reckoned they saw sparks flying. So… I became Sparky.”
“Sparks flying… I like that.”
“It could have been a good name for a romance bookstore—although I think A Moonlit Night suits it well.”
“The store!” She stopped dead in the bedroom doorway. “It’s supposed to be opening day tomorrow, but I don’t think I’m up for unpacking boxes this afternoon. We’ll have to postpone for a few days, at least.”
“This is Cantrell, mo cuishle. If you ask, people will help. Go get in the truck—don’t forget your pain meds—and I’ll make some calls on the way, okay?”