Chapter Eight
Rain
Making a change can be painful.
My entire life changed after I lost my mother. But it may not have if I had just sat in my pain, in my grief. I was hurting so much I had to go seek something to ease the pain. Something to ground me again, to give me a purpose. It turns out my purpose might not be being some cash cow hero.
I think my purpose may be the big, slightly broken roughneck cuddling me. Reece’s arms tighten on me, drawing my back against his firm chest. His body is warm and I fit to it as if I were carved from his hard lines. I snuggle back, laughing when he lets out one of his sexy sounds.
“Behave. I am wore out, princess,” he teases, kissing the back of my neck.
Morning light filters through the sheer curtains, throwing golden shadows across the tangled white sheets. It’s quiet, save for the usual sounds of the wild. It’s a beautiful rhythm to wake up to, even better paired with the grounding rhythm of Reece’s breathing.
“Hush. That last go-round was your idea baby,” I hum even as I give a shake of my ass which is what gave him that idea a few hours ago.
His hand swats my backside and I laugh again.
Being with him is the most fun I’ve ever had.
I know there is trauma, something he still struggles with every day, but there’s so much more.
Reece makes me feel safe, he makes me feel adored and cared for, and I want to do the same for him.
I might have gone up that mountain thinking I had to rescue him, but I think he is the one saving me.
I’ve spent so long circling the globe, throwing money at problems I had no idea how to fix.
I dug in and got my hands dirty a few times, sure.
But I never found my actual purpose. What I was put here to do, why I had been given the advantages I had.
Turning in Reece’s arms, I stare up at him in the golden morning light.
“You’re beautiful,” I whisper as my touch traces the worst of the scars at his cheek, his jaw. “I see well past these scars, caveman. You have to give others a chance to see past them too.”
“You’re beautiful,” he rasps back, his rough fingers tracing my face gently. “No one has bothered to see past them before.”
“Wrong. You never gave anyone a chance. I just know you wanted to slam the door on my face the day we met.”
Reece lets out a warm chuckle, letting his shoulder bounce. “I might have wanted to. Until you smiled up at me and said the cute shit you say. Then I wanted to kidnap you. Which I just might still do, princess.”
“Hmm, you can kidnap me all you want, caveman. I might even be worth a decent ransom,” I tease.
Reece grins at me as low murmur vibrates in his chest. His arm, heavy and warm, tightens around my waist, pulling me back against him until there is no space left between us. I don’t mind one bit. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, his breath warm against my collarbone.
“Don’t go giving me ideas, I could get behind the idea of chaining you up at the cabin and never letting you out of my sight,” he shoots back.
I let out a soft laugh, tracing a finger down the line of his forearm, feeling the subtle flex of his muscle underneath. “Who says you would need chains to keep me there?”
Reece catches my hand, threading his fingers through mine and pressing a kiss to my knuckles. “Chains may still be used, it could be fun.”
Laughing with him, I turn once again, pressing my back to his front.
Behind me, he lets out a contented sigh as his powerful arms wrap me up.
I close my eyes to savor the moment, breathing in his earthy scent, the smell of my perfume on the sheets, and the warmth of the morning sun.
I never want to forget any of these moments with him.
When he showed up at the Lodge last night, I was stunned.
My uncle had insisted he would—we almost made a bet.
I refused his wager because I was afraid he would be wrong.
I was afraid that the cruel things Reece had said were true.
That he did not want to keep me, that our night together had mean nothing to him.
Even as I sped from his cabin, tears streaming down my face, I knew that was not true.
I could feel it when he touched me. When he kissed me.
He would look at me with his look of…. wonderment.
It was the first time a man had ever looked at me and seen me.
Not the spoiled brat or the reformed rich girl. Just me.
“I lied about something else,” his voice startles me from my thoughts.
“Oh, did you?”
“Yes, I did. I said I had no intention of telling you. To be totally transparent, you’re the first person I want to tell it all to.”
Turning again, I gaze up at him in the golden light, touching his scars gently once more.
His dark eyes storm but when I cradle his face, that storm seems to slowly subside.
I lift up to brush my lips over his scars, intent on showing him they do not scare me or turn me off.
There is a tragic tale behind these scars and I want him to stop hiding behind it.
“Whenever you want to tell me,” I whisper softly. “I will listen. It changes nothing. Nothing you can tell me would change this for me.”
Lowering his head, he touches his brow to mine.
Taking a trembling breath, he nods. “That might be true but if it is not, I won’t blame you.
If I tell you everything, it might very well change things.
I want you to know because I don’t want to hide any part of myself from you. Even the ugliest parts.”
I brush my lips over him and nod. I say nothing. He needs to do the talking. It is in the tension in his big body, how his rough hands grip me even as they shake, it’s in his racing heart. I want him to feel safe, to know that same feeling he gave me the moment we met.
“I…I was always alone, even before this. I had great parents, two brothers, came from a good family. But I was just…different. I was bigger, clumsier, louder, I just…it seemed as if I didn’t fit with them.
I found a place I fit out on the water. On an oil rig.
I wasn’t the biggest guy or the clumsiest or even the loudest. I fit.
Being a roughneck was the first thing I was good at, that made sense,” he sighs, his gaze locked on the past.
“I…I was too prideful. I was good at the job, I could handle the loneliness, seclusion. It never bothered me that the crew was always changing. It is a hard life. There were a few of us who stuck it out. We were more than friends, it was…it was the first time I knew what being a family could mean. It was the best and worst thing that had ever happened to me.”
Reece takes a breath, his words trailing off. I press closer as if I can take some of his sadness some of his pain. His arms tighten on me as if he thinks maybe I can. I brush my lips over his again, my heart triple timing when I feel his smile against my mouth.
“There is a new best and worst thing,” he hums, stunning me.
“To ever happen to me. I…do not deserve it. A second chance. I am not worthy of you or your faith in me, but…I am not good enough to let you go. Whether I deserve this with you, or deserve you, I want you. I have never wanted anything the way I want you.”
“You have me,” I whisper, cradling his face as I catch his roaming gaze. “I think you had me the moment you opened that door. And not just because you look amazing in just a towel,” I tease, loving the crooked smile he gives me as it lights up his eyes.
“Still can’t believe I let you get off the mountain that day. I wanted you the moment you touched me, Rain. It was the first time…the first time I didn’t feel my scars.”
“Because I saw past them. Others will too, baby,” I rasp.
Reece smiles, tilting his head to rub his nose against mine.
Lord, for being a growling, tortured roughneck, he sure is sweet.
“Maybe I will believe that now because of you. I will never forget where I got the scars or what it cost. There was…. there was an accident. Accidents happen on an oil rig, we’re trained for all the outcomes, how to save lives, to minimize damage.
Only when an actual catastrophic accident happened, no training saved the day or the lives of two men,” his voice breaks on the final words and tears flood my eyes.
Moving closer, I cradle him to me. I cannot imagine the guilt, the horror of thinking he was responsible for someone’s death.
I don’t try to pretend I could ever understand that level of torment.
But what I can do is be there to listen to him talk it out, to offer the kindness he doesn’t think he deserves.
“That would be…you mentioned a Walter the day we met…”
Reece nods, letting out a trembling breath.
“Walter Miller. He’s the father of…well, of one of the men who died that day.
He was not just on my crew…Matt was…he was my best friend.
Hell, the only true friend I ever had before.
I will never truly forgive myself. I shouldn’t.
I cost Walter Miller his son, a wife her husband…
. the other guy had been there two days.
Two fucking days and it was all over, forever,” his words are thick with tears, so I reach up to brush them with gentle fingertips.
We sit in the warm sunshine in a loaded silence.
Not tense or uncomfortable. Not full of questions or doubts.
He is just sitting in the space he’s never been before—the space where he trusted someone enough to speak the trauma out loud.
I can’t fight back my own tears because for this man, this stoic, stubborn man, to open up this way is a gift.
Because I’ve spent the last few years using our fortunes to do for others, I have made some good contacts.
After I left his cabin the other night, I called some of those contacts.
I wanted to find out who Walter was to him and see if I could fix whatever it was about the man that haunted Reece.
I had found out about the accident, of course, but until he spoke about it on his own time, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.
“Baby,” I whisper as I cradle his jaw in gentle hands. “You do know they cleared you of any fault? That it was a problem in the control system that you could not have known about. Walter Miller has never blamed you.”
Reece recoils, his brow furrowing as he searches my face. “What do you mean? You said you had no idea who Walter Miller was. Were you…were you lying? Were you sent here by him.”
Pushing back, I sit up, bringing the sheet to cover me.
I want to be very clear about where I stand.
“No, Reece. I have never met the man. I did not know who he was until I left the cabin. I spoke to him last night. He won’t talk to me other than to confirm who he is and that he has wanted to talk to you for years.
He said he wanted those words to be between the two of you.
I was not sent here to test you or to use my body to break you somehow.
I thought you might have realized that by now,” I pull back more, stung that he still seems to doubt me.
Reece moves fast, sitting on the edge of the bed. I think he might just get up and leave. I let out a shout of surprise when he scoops me up with one strong arm, dragging me across the bed. The shout becomes a laugh when he settles me down on his lap, wrapping both of us up in the tangled sheets.
“I do, princess. I did not mean that…either time I’ve said something stupid, I did not mean it the way I said it.
Remember I locked myself away for a long time, I am not good at…
people-ing I suppose. But I know you did not come here for any other reason than to do something good.
To bring the tormented beast out of his tower,” he teases with a smile.
“I…thank you, Rain. Thank you for coming back with your smiles your light. I don’t deserve it, but I want it. ”
“You want me, caveman?”
“Oh, princess, yes, I want you. You said I could keep you and I intend to do just that.”
Smiling, I nod my head. “Good. You don’t need chains to do it but you could take me home, caveman. Home is not the lodge or Hollow Peak. It’s hiding out up on the mountain with you.”
Reece seems to agree because we get out of town before the sunset.