Chapter 7 Penny
Penny
“Fuck.”
Penny blinked, pulling her attention away from the increasingly rural sights out of the windows and towards her travelling companion. “What?”
Rhys turned off the music with a panicked, almost clumsy movement. “I—We need to stop.”
She would have made a sly remark about him getting sick of listening to what was undoubtedly the world’s worst playlist, but there was something in his voice that made her sit up straight. “Is it the car?”
“No. Fuck,” he said again, with something in his eyes that might have been fear. “I need you to read the road signs for me. Find somewhere to stay. A hotel. Anywhere.”
To stay? They were less than an hour away from their destination, according to the navigation, but Penny did what she was told. It seemed like they’d passed a million hotels on their way down here, but now that she needed one, there was nothing but empty fields and speed limit signs.
“Please,” Rhys begged her. Begged.
The sound of his voice—far from its usual arrogant, faintly amused tone—spurred her on like nothing else could.
“I’m trying,” she tried to reassure him, just as they passed a sign for a farm. Her eyes lit up at the words on the next one, though. Camping and Caravan Park. It wasn’t a hotel, but it would have to do. “Turn left. This left right here.”
Rhys let out a heavy exhale as the turn took them down a single-track road, edged in on either side with tall hedges—before they fell away to reveal a wider tarmacked area, at the centre of which was a small, single-storey wooden building, a ‘Reception’ sign over the door.
A tall palm tree was the first thing to catch her eye, but the sign posted next to it held her attention for longer.
Welcome to Cocks Hill Camping and Caravan Park, it declared, as though that was a perfectly normal name.
“Go in,” Rhys interrupted her thoughts, his palm covering his eyes. He blindly slapped his wallet across her midriff. “Get somewhere for the night. Quickly. Please.”
She didn’t waste any time, getting out of the car and throwing open the reception door.
A pretty little waiting area sat to her right, decorated with blooming pots of flowers and framed landscape photos of what she assumed were nearby places to visit, but Penny ignored them in favour of the woman sitting at a desk in front of her.
“How can I…” The woman—Linda, according to her name badge—attempted a smile, but her eyes widened as she looked down at Penny’s outfit. "Er, help?”
It was only at that moment that Penny remembered her outfit was plastered in fucking sausage rolls. She powered through the embarrassment as best she could. “Do you have any rooms—caravans—available?”
“Do you have a booking reference?”
“Um, no.”
Linda’s smile was strained over her computer, and Penny knew she looked—and sounded—like she’d lost her marbles.
“As far as I’m aware, we’re fully booked now the kids are all on school holidays.
” The receptionist sat up a little straighter.
“Actually, we do have the shepherd’s hut available in field two. ”
“The shepherd’s hut?” Penny’s brows pinched together. That sounded…rustic.
Linda nodded. “For glamping.”
“I’m sure that’ll be fine.”
Her long fingernails clicked over the keyboard. “How many nights for?”
“One.” I think.
“The minimum is two.”
Penny leant her arm on the counter, Rhys’s card in hand. “Two is fine.” She was sure he could afford it.
She danced from foot to foot as Linda requested every item of personal information Penny could think of, but at last she was handed a map of the site and, most importantly, the key to their hut—whatever that meant.
Judging by the amount Rhys had paid, she was hoping it was at least semi-habitable and not the garden shed she was envisioning.
Rhys was slumped over the steering wheel when she slid back into the car. For a brief, horrifying moment, she thought he was dead, but then he lifted his head from between his crossed arms. “Did you find somewhere?”
“Yes.” The word was quiet as she realised just how slurred his words were becoming. What the fuck was wrong with him? “We need to go to field two. We just have to carry on up this road, and it’ll be on the right.”
“Tell me if anything’s behind me,” Rhys muttered, putting the car into reverse.
“No, you’re good.” Her eyes fell to the centre console, where a blister pack of tablets sat—with two missing. “Are you sure you should be driving?”
Rhys didn’t answer.
Thankfully, he didn’t need to drive for long. “There’s field two.” Penny sat up in her seat as she spotted the open farm gate, a sign affixed to the hedgerows on either side.
The shepherd’s hut was immediately obvious the moment they entered the field.
Instead of the dilapidated garden shed she was expecting, it took the form of a smart wooden cabin painted in a pale green.
A semi-circular garden enclosed it, lined off by a neat hedge and accessible only through a garden gate.
Penny regretted not putting her seat belt on as Rhys had the car skidding to a halt alarmingly close to the gate.
“Open the front door,” he slurred out, letting out a grunt of exertion as he lifted himself out of the car.
Key in hand, she followed him, skidding around the bonnet. She opened the gate for him, but for the first time had a front-on view of his face—and dread slid down her spine. One side of his face was normal, but there was a chilling slant to the other. “Are you having a stroke?”
“Door. Now.”
Not wanting to argue, she crossed the semi-circular garden, seeing pink-and-purple flowers bursting from tall planters lining the path.
A picturesque table and chairs occupied one side of the garden, with what looked like a hot tub on the other.
She unlocked the door, relieved to see that the inside of the hut was just as habitable as the outside.
It was small, admittedly, but it was swathed in pale green gingham fabric.
When Penny turned, she saw that Rhys had barely covered a quarter of the path on his own. It couldn’t have been more than ten feet. He was leaning heavily on one of the tall planters, exhaustion and pain seeping from his every pore.
She ran over and pulled his arm over her shoulders, trying to take as much of his weight as possible. “Lean on me, come on.”
Together, they slowly limped towards the hut. With every step, her concern grew. His left side seemed to be normal, but his right side was alarmingly weak. She attempted to shoulder his weight, grateful that she’d at least inherited her height from her bastard of a father, if nothing else.
The step up into the hut was the final obstacle. Penny went first, pulling Rhys up with all of her strength—and breathing a ragged sigh of relief when it was enough. She nodded towards the gingham-covered double bed. “Lie down here.”
Rhys collapsed onto the bed with a pained groan. It was unnerving to see him like this. A man she was so used to being an uncontrollable pain in her arse, rendered helpless by… what, exactly?
“Rhys,” she whispered breathlessly, perching on the bed next to him, “do I need to call an ambulance?”
His croak might have been a no.
She reached out to touch his shoulder. It was more robust than she’d anticipated, but she ignored the feeling. “Tell me how I can help you,” she begged. Seeing him like this was soul-destroying.
She thought back to earlier today when she’d emerged from the car after changing into his ridiculous choice of outfit. That was the Rhys she wanted back, the smirking arsehole. He may irritate her at work, but it hadn’t stopped him from saving her last night—or bringing her along today.
He pulled a pillow over his eyes with his still-functional left hand. “You can’t. It won’t stop now.”
So he knew what this was? That was a relief. “What is it?”
“Migraine.”
Her eyebrows hit her hairline. Migraines couldn’t do whatever this was, could they? Some of Penny’s only memories of her mother were her migraines, but the worst of those involved lying in a dark bedroom and throwing up.
His throat worked in a thick swallow. “Hemiplegic.”
“Okay.” She remembered the blister pack of tablets. “Have you taken medication for it?”
Rhys’s broken amber eyes connected with hers in a silent plea.
Penny squeezed his shoulder in acknowledgement; he didn’t need an interrogation right now—but she could at least make him comfortable.
Shifting her attention away, she reached down to untie his shoes, gently prying them off and placing them on the floor.
As quietly as she could, she closed the curtains over both of the windows in the hut, which, now that she actually had a chance to look around, reminded her of those tiny homes she’d seen online.
There wasn’t much to it. A double bed, an in-built sofa, a kitchenette, and a door leading to a bathroom.
She stole the bin out of the bathroom, placing it next to the bed in case Rhys felt nauseous, like her mother used to. Putting a glass of water on the bedside table was the next task she accomplished.
At that point, she remembered there was an appallingly expensive Bentley outside with the keys in it.
Her heart thundered as she rushed towards the door, but to her relief, Rhys’s obnoxious green car remained where they had left it.
Perhaps it blended in with the surrounding fields.
Penny spent the next few minutes emptying the car of Rhys’s neatly packed leather bag, as well as the bags of ridiculous clothing he’d bought for her. She couldn’t resist taking another peek inside, trying hard to resist smiling as she did so.
When had his shenanigans turned from annoying to endearing? She wasn’t quite sure.
Once the car was unloaded and locked, she returned to the hut. She dug out the only possession she had on her when she fled last night: her work phone. It had died at some point on their journey, but she was pleased to discover Rhys’s phone charger fitted hers as well.
She looked over her shoulder to find Rhys motionless on the bed, his chest slowly moving as he breathed. Was he asleep? She hoped so.
Penny had never had a migraine. Even her headaches were few and far between. But she could only imagine how much pain he was in if this was what it reduced him to in the space of an hour.
A barrage of messages and emails were waiting on her phone for her. Most of them were work-related, but there were several from Elaine, her father’s wife, and Joseph, her stepbrother. Penny’s lip curled as she swiped the messages away without reading them. Off you fuck.
In a competition for her least favourite person on earth, Joseph would win, but her father and Elaine would come in second and third, respectively. Joseph because he terrorised her for years, locking her in the dark just to hear her scream, and Dad and Elaine because they fucking let him.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. She hated, hated thinking of that fucking cellar, for more reasons than one.
Penny had been seven when it started, when her and dad had moved in with Elaine and Joseph, seven to Joseph’s twelve.
A brain tumour had taken her mother the year before, and yet neither Dad nor Elaine stepped in to stop Joseph.
A fear of the dark was normal for a girl her age, but Joseph had turned it into something bigger.
You’re family now, they’d told her. You need to learn to get along—and forgive each other.
They’d ignored the fact that it was always Penny doing the so-called forgiving. She was always the wronged party. Joseph was always the aggressor, and yet Dad—in between his prison sentences—did nothing.
Mum would never have let it happen. Even when Penny had had something as trivial as a cold, Mum never let her suffer alone.
Behind her, Rhys let out a heart-breaking whimper, his left fist curling into the covers.
Penny moved before she thought about it. She might not be able to help, but she could at least let him know he wasn’t alone.
“I’m here, Rhys,” she whispered, kneeling on the bed to settle next to his head, her back against the winged headboard.
His hand moved blindly, finding hers in a sea of mint green gingham.
Oh Rhys.
Daring greatly, she stroked his head, still feeling that little niggle in her brain that wanted her to help.
His dark hair was thicker than it looked.
He let out a gruff sigh into the pillow, spurring her on.
Penny delved her fingers into his chocolatey strands, letting her nails rasp against his scalp.
Rhys let out a deep, throaty moan. He lifted his head out of the pillow, pulling her towards him one-handed with surprising ease. “More,” he demanded. “Please.”
This time, Penny let both hands freely tunnel through his hair, massaging every inch of scalp she could reach before starting all over again.
Each of Rhys’s exhales seemed to carry with it a shudder of relief, pulling her closer with his left hand, until his head was in her lap and his arm was locked around her waist like a chain.
In the end, she wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that.
Minutes? Hours? It was the middle of the afternoon, by her estimate.
What was she doing this time yesterday? Being annoyed by the very man using her as a pillow, most likely.
Her arms began to ache, but she didn’t stop, even when his breathing became deeper and more rhythmic, with faint snores emerging from his lungs, interspersed with faint whimpers of pain.
Light flashed from near Rhys’s hips, and she realised his phone had fallen out of his pocket at some point. It had landed on the bed with the screen facing upwards.
Her lips parted in joint outrage and amusement at the sight of it, but it wasn’t whatever notification he’d just received—it was his phone background.
It was a zoomed-in photo of her, taken at some point this morning whilst she’d been asleep.
It was perhaps the most unflattering photo anyone had ever taken of her.
Her hair was a bird’s nest around her face, which was a mess in its own right.
Deep circles were embedded beneath her eyes, whilst her lips were hanging open, unevenly squashed against the pillow beneath her head.
And—she winced—there was a damp patch staining the fabric. One she was almost certain was drool.
Penny bit her lip, trying not to smile. Bastard.
She glanced down at him as he slept, still running her fingers through his hair. Even she had to admit, objectively, that he was good-looking. It was a fact that was easy to forget when he was being really fucking annoying.