Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Kell
The bedroom ceiling was really, really boring.
And no matter how hard he stared at it, it didn’t make his body stand down.
What had he just done? What had he just done? Rachel had been in his arms, sweet lips on his, wet tongue dancing as they kissed, and he’d pulled away and…
Stopped.
Why the hell did he stop?
Years of feelings had flooded him the moment he’d found her asleep in her car, the glow of the video she was watching on her laptop illuminating her in repose. At first, he’d been annoyed by seeing someone in the parking lot out there, watching something on her laptop.
Once in a great while people got too much alcohol in them and tried to sleep it off in their cars around the bar, but in this kind of cold in February, that was a recipe for disaster.
It was why Bilbee’s Tavern had a bunkhouse in the first place. Ten bucks and you got a bed, a jar of Advil, and a place to shower.
He’d gone downstairs in the snow and tapped on the window, but before his knuckle had graced the glass, he’d been shocked to see it was Rachel.
And the screen showed she was watching The Vampire Tracker. Not a supernatural show, but the hottest new Nordic noir series.
Was she that desperate? That lonely? Sitting in a parking lot watching a show, and so tired she’d fallen asleep? Regret had filled him, his behavior less than stellar when she’d arrived. Maybe he’d underestimated her.
There was so much more to Rachel, just as he’d thought back in D.C.
Of course there was. She was human, right? No one was all good or all bad. Everyone had an inner emotional life that was more complicated than the world could see.
Exhibit A – himself.
A small voice, low and insistent, told him Rachel was the one. The one he wanted, the one he cared for, the one who made him feel special, the one who made him feel real and true and smart and right.
Being loved the right way was rare. His parents had it, a certainty that became the backdrop for who they were, how they interacted with the world, how they emotionally mapped life itself. With a soulmate, you could relax. Lean on each other. Talk and laugh and plan and dream.
Drawn to her so strongly, he felt that truth like it was the only truth.
She was meant for him.
When he’d tapped on the window, she’d been terrified, and rightly so. At that moment, he’d also seen that the wrong guy coming along could have put her in danger, and that’s when he’d decided to invite her up.
Make her sleep in his apartment.
And then she’d been so… direct.
Finally.
Should have been him. The moment he’d laid eyes on her on that old logging road, her body on the ground, sliding down as she desperately clung to the bottom of his truck door, he’d nearly said her name.
Heart racing, mind going back five years, he’d been stunned out of the present. Rachel Hart represented so many questions about who he was.
Not just questions about what had happened five years ago.
Questions about what kind of human being Kell Luview was, at the core.
Now, stretched out in bed, the press of his obvious arousal against the heavy down comforter driving him nuts, Rachel still stirred up too many emotions, too many questions, too many thoughts.
Being with her was an endless quest, with infinite roads they could go down to learn something new about themselves and each other.
And he ached for that.
Ached for her.
“So why did you turn her down, dumbass?” he muttered into his pillow, giving it a punch for good measure, as if it were the goosedown’s fault.
Yet, he knew.
Knew why.
Sleeping with Rachel would feel good. Damn good. More than good, he knew the connection between them would go beyond skin and sighs, deeper than lips and tongues. Hands could do a lot of talking when you were naked with someone, but so could eyes and hearts.
Taking that intimate leap was a point of no return.
And points of no return required more certainty.
If she were just here until February 15, then back to her life in L.A., making love with her would be nothing more than a blip. An enjoyable experience, to be sure, but he didn’t just want enjoyable experiences.
He wanted deep love.
Plenty of women in town offered him sex. If he wanted it, he could find it.
Wanting more meant holding back. Holding off.
Holding out.
As sleep eluded him, Kell spent the next few hours playing through all of the possible routes his relationship with Rachel could take, until he came to one conclusion:
Leaving D.C. had been a snap decision. He’d broken his life on a line, taking one part back home and leaving the rest.
The clean break was anything but.
And now he had to reconsider everything he thought about Rachel.
Including the possibility that he’d been very, very wrong.
Sleep came to him in fits and starts until, at 5:18, he finally gave up. An early riser by trade, he was normally up around this time anyhow.
But now he sat up in surprise, realizing something was missing. It definitely wasn’t his morning wood, which was stronger than ever.
No. It was Calamine.
The cat was always curled up at his feet on the bed. Where was she?
Sliding his feet into slippers, he pulled on a sweater over his silk undershirt, legs covered in flannel bottoms, and tiptoed to the bathroom.
After taking care of business, he walked into his living room to find Rachel deeply asleep, one arm tucked under her pillow, the rest of her burrowed into the down blanket he’d given her, looking cozy.
An angelic look covered her sleeping face. The normal tension was gone, stripping years off her face.
This was the Rachel he remembered.
A rush of desire to kiss her, hold her, sit in silence and just be with her forced him to turn away, until he heard a rustle.
His traitorous cat was curled up on the comforter on top of her feet.
Kell’s jaw dropped.
“Et tu, Calamine?”
The cat’s eyelids fluttered, but didn’t even bother to look at him.
If Cally liked Rachel, that said a lot. In Kell’s experience, she was a good judge of character.
Hmmm.
A yawn caught him and he struggled not to make any noise. His body craved oxygen, the flow of blood into tired muscles warming him up.
Coffee.
Time for coffee.
The living room was big, but everything was open, so as he filled the carafe with water and set the filter and grounds in the cone-shaped portion of the coffeemaker, he did so quietly, the satisfying gurgle of the machine sounding like fireworks.
Rachel didn’t move.
The first cup of coffee in the morning was a ritual, sitting in front of the wood stove with Cally in his lap, starting the day off slow and nice.
Kell opened the stove’s glass door, low embers still in there.
He put a fresh quarter piece of wood inside and a couple of smaller chunks of untreated wood from a work project.
As he sat in his chair, he made no sound.
Cally made no effort to come to him.
The embers mesmerized him, giving him a brief reprieve from the overwhelm of his mind. After a few minutes, he heard a small gasp, followed by the light sigh of Rachel stretching.
“Mmmm. Morning.”
“Good morning.”
She smiled at him, running her fingers through her hair as if embarrassed. “Did I snore?”
“Nope.”
“This couch is surprisingly comfortable.”
“You could have had my bed.”
“If you’re offering stuff to me, how about a coffee?”
“Help yourself.”
She had slept in her clothes, so when she stood up, she shivered but got over it fast, finding a heart-shaped mug on the small rack next to his coffeemaker.
“You have the Love You Coffee mugs?”
“Everyone does at some point. You get them as a present, you win them in a Yankee swap. You know.”
“No, I don’t. I’ve never lived somewhere so small that everyone eventually ends up with the same thing from a local shop.”
“Huh.”
“They’re cute, though.” After pouring her coffee, she returned to the couch, sitting at the end, closer to Calamine and Kell. Cally didn’t move.
Kell’s lap felt cold. And for the first time since he’d moved in here, someone other than Calamine could warm it.
She took a sip. “Mmm. This is way better than Kenny’s coffee.”
“That’s because he buys his in bulk from some warehouse club in Conway. It’s cheaper than getting Reef’s coffee.”
“Reef is the manager of Love You Coffee, right?”
“Yep.”
“He liked my ground vanilla idea.”
“Ground vanilla?”
“It’s really good in coffee.”
“You ranted about that on the PA system.”
“I did.”
“Do you have any idea how many people tracked me down to give me their opinion of your rant?”
“Probably even more than the ones who tracked me down to chew me out.”
Her instant understanding of that truth made him fall a little bit more for her.
“Not all the commentary was negative.”
“Really?”
“Some people agree with you.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Our old director of business development had a few fans, you know. The town isn’t one hundred percent of a mind on anything.”
“But the majority is anti-growth, anti-change.”
“I wouldn’t call it anti.” He took a big gulp of his coffee, enjoying just chatting with her, here in his own place, like this was normal.
He wanted it to be normal. Normal was feeling fine.
“Then what?”
“People like what they like. They love this town, and they’re afraid of losing whatever it is that makes it special. You have to show them how something new will eventually be something they like.”
“Persuading people isn’t my strong suit.”
“You said Tom asked you for a white paper,” he teased. “Why not go for it?”
“Because I’m leaving in a few days.”
Thud.
There it was.
The temperature between them instantly cooled by twenty degrees.
“Right.”
He stood, Calamine opening her eyes and looking at him as if to say, Oh. You’re here, too?
“I have a big day. And I have to go to the post office to mail some invoices and quotes.” He frowned at the messy desk. “There’s a huge pile I need to send, but haven’t.”
“Why not?”
“Just… time. You know.”
“It’s money, Kell. Invoices mean money.”
“I know.”
“You did the work?”
“Yep.”