Chapter 21
“You have got to be kidding me.” Taylor held out her hand, palm up. “Does it ever stop raining here?”
Struggling to stifle a grin, Rhys looked away, hoping he could get his lips under control before the love of his life cottoned on to his amusement at her expense.
“And it’s cold,” she added. “I’m freezing.”
Okay, he was prepared to give her that, given how quickly she’d acclimated to Texas after she’d left New York—a city not exactly known for its temperate winters.
He wrapped his hand around hers and tucked it in the pocket of his jacket.
“It’s only September. I’ll bring you back for Christmas, then you’ll see how cold it can be. ”
He risked a quick glance and a raised eyebrow—his reward was a glare that would shrivel the balls of a lesser mortal.
Not that he could blame her. Her introduction to his homeland could have gotten off to a better start.
After taking three flights to get to Cardiff, they now faced a couple of hours in the rental car before they reached his family home.
“Okay—so long as we can turn the heating up in the car.” Her eyes narrowed with exaggerated suspicion. “The car will have heating, won’t it?”
For a moment, Rhys wasn’t entirely sure she was joking, but a twitch of her lips gave her away.
Two could play at that game. He raised his eyebrows and adopted a shocked expression.
“You never told me you wanted the deluxe model. I only booked the basic orange box on wheels.” He glanced down at her feet.
“I hope the soles on your boots are sturdy, because those are going to be our brakes.”
The way her eyes narrowed told him she knew he was teasing her. “Smart ass.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Not only will it have heating, fy nghariad, there’ll even be a wheel at each corner and an engine under the bonnet.”
“You put hats on your cars over here? Wow. That, I did not expect.”
This time, he didn’t even bother to try to quell his urge to laugh.
It wasn’t the first time Taylor had made a joke out of the differences between British English and American English, and it wouldn’t be the last. If everything went as planned, he could look forward to a lifetime of verbal jousting like this.
That being said, he was particularly proud of the fact he’d succeeded in teaching her how to pronounce Worcestershire.
She had considered it her crowning linguistic achievement—until they’d started the Welsh lessons.
“Come on. Let’s find that car and get away from here. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of airports for now.”
At least it was the final leg of their journey—a visit to Wales for a much-needed break several months after the distress, anguish, and heartbreak of the events that had brought them together.
The delayed impact on Taylor had been brutal, but Rhys had been with her every step of the way—comforting her through the nightmares and supporting her through her counseling sessions while she came to terms with the reality of her relationship with the man she’d once called “Pops.”
That on its own would have been more than enough for anyone to process, but the confrontation with Markham had left Taylor with a much greater burden.
The pain of grieving for a little brother she’d never even known she had; the loss of the man she’d loved in truly horrifying circumstances; mourning again for her mother, not killed in a tragic accident but by her own choice.
Markham had confessed, during further questioning, to burning the suicide note implicating him in her decision to take her own life.
When Taylor was ready to pay a return visit to her mother’s grave in New York, Rhys would be by her side all the way.
However, now they were on their way to the first in-person meeting between all the people he loved most in the world. Hopefully, all would go well. His family was important to him, but Taylor was everything.
He heard her gasp almost as soon as they left the vicinity of the airport. Seeing it through her eyes, it might seem as if they were on a different planet from the big skies of Texas. Rhys’ pride in his homeland prompted him to ask the inevitable question.
“So, what do you think?”
“It’s…” Taylor swung her gaze from the passenger window to him. Her smile was more carefree than he’d seen for a while. “Amazing. It’s everything you said and more. So much green.”
“You remember what I said about that?” He grinned.
“‘Green takes rain’, I believe you said. I assume the depth of the green is directly proportional to the amount of rain? Given it’s so very green and so very wet?”
“Something like that, but I’m no expert.” He’d just grown up in the rain.
“Okay. So, how long until we get there?”
That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “If we get a clear run, just over an hour, no more than an hour and a half.” Rhys sent up a silent prayer to the traffic gods.
“And if we don’t?”
Now came the bad news. “Your guess is as good as mine. You should probably know we’ll only be on the motorway for around half the journey. The rest of it will be on minor roads that’ll take us through some of the villages. If you’re feeling tired, you can always take a nap.”
Her reaction was almost horrified. “Are you kidding me? I want to see everything.”
“Then in that case, I should warn you—the roads might seem a little… claustrophobic for you. Wide, open spaces here aren’t on the same scale as Texas.”
She gave him one of her warmest smiles, the ones he particularly cherished. “I’m sure I’ll cope. In case it isn’t obvious, I can’t wait to see more of the place you come from.”
That was what she did. Every day she said or did something that made him love her even more.
And yet… unless he missed his guess, something was bothering her. He didn’t think she was starting to regret their trip, but he didn’t want to make any assumptions. “You know, you can tell me if anything’s worrying you.”
His heart rate kicked up a notch when she didn’t answer immediately—something it hadn’t even done in the sandbox, when he and his unit had encountered a heavily armed swarm of the enemy that had them vastly outnumbered.
“What if they don’t like me?”
He wasn’t about to insult her by pretending not to know what she meant, but before he could comment, she continued.
“What if your parents have secretly harbored a wish for you to date a nice girl from the next village up the valley, not some brash American?”
There was so much wrong with Taylor’s question, he was tempted to park up in the approaching lay-by so he could unpick it syllable by syllable. However, they were both tired, and he could do that later, once they arrived at their destination. For now, though, he’d settle for the abridged version.
“I’ve met plenty of brash Americans since I moved to Texas—you are not one of them.
As for the rest of it, that is a conversation we will be having later.
Right now, all I’m going to tell you is that none of it applies.
I mean, are you crazy? How could they not like the woman their favorite son loves? ”
“You’re their only son, remember?”
How could he forget? He’d been brought up surrounded by sisters, not to mention their bevy of fragrant, feminine besties—especially when, as teenagers on the cusp of womanhood, they’d taken to hurling themselves at him when he’d come home on leave after he’d joined the army.
His unerring sense of self-preservation had prevented him from catching any of them.
“A minor detail. What makes you think they won’t like you when they meet you for real? ”
“I don’t speak Welsh. Not properly, and not enough.”
Not for want of trying. For a non-native speaker, she’d done well in the few weeks since she’d asked him to teach her a few words and phrases, ready for their trip.
“You know something? If you greet them the way I taught you, even if your pronunciation isn’t as perfect as you’d like, they’ll love you forever for making the effort.
They’ll also love you forever because I’ll love you forever. ”
He felt it in every fiber of his being—he and this woman were meant to grow old together.
“You really mean that? You sound so sure.”
“Yes, I mean it, and I sound sure because I am sure. Stop worrying. Trust me—everything will be fine. Better than fine. Look, the sun’s coming out—that proves it.”
It didn’t prove anything of the kind, of course, but it was enough to block the path Taylor’s thoughts were taking and divert them to a happier place. His life’s mission would be to ensure she always had a happier place; he knew she was there by the joy in her laughter.
“You know something? I’ll love you forever, too.”
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Not only had the sun come out, a rainbow had blessed them with its multi-colored glory in the general direction in which they were heading.
After confessing her concerns to Rhys, Taylor settled in for the rest of the journey in a considerably better frame of mind, improved even more by immersion in countryside that the tourism websites simply hadn’t done justice.
She’d fallen in love with the images online, but reality was so much better.
And once they left the freeway—motorway—it only got better.
The peace of it all—rolling green fields and tree-covered hills—made it seem as if their last flight had taken them through a mystical portal, to another dimension far removed from the reality that included the many sins of Charles Markham.
No. She was not going to let that sickening excuse for a human being intrude on her newfound heaven.
“That was a deep sigh. What are you thinking about?”
Rhys’ quiet concern emphasized his accent—or was it just being in the wonderful country from where it originated? Taylor wasn’t sure, but she’d happily listen to him recite a grocery list. “Oh, this and that. Everything. Nothing. I don’t know.”