Chapter 29
RACHEL
The first thing Rachel noticed was that her body felt like it’d been through a war, childbirth, and a plane crash simultaneously. Still, remarkably, this was an improvement from the day before.
The second thing Rachel noticed was there was a man in her bed.
Travis.
His eyes were closed, his breaths even. He seemed… peaceful.
She smiled.
He hadn’t gotten under the blankets with her. No, he was sleeping on top of the comforter, fully clothed, breathing softly.
The third thing Rachel noticed was that she liked waking up next to him.
They’d had sex, cuddled after, but she’d never seen him sleep. Not deeply. Not like this.
There was the time when he was recovering on the sofa up at the Lakes. But that hardly counted, given his broken sleep, her boys and Gavin slept in the same room, and she cared for them all.
She reached for the thermometer and took her temperature.
Normal. Totally normal.
As though the past day hadn’t even happened.
“How are you feeling, sunshine?” Travis asked, his voice rough from sleep.
She turned to him. “Like I need to invest in a bell.”
He smiled. “Mama found the container of cinnamon tarts and has convinced herself that she’s responsible for poisoning all of us.”
“But I didn’t eat one.” Rachel moved to sit up, and the room didn’t even spin. “Not after watching all of you deal with the aftermath. I put them in the fridge, but I didn’t eat any.”
Travis leaned on an elbow, reaching out with his other hand to push her hair behind her ear. “Let’s not tell Mama that part, yeah?”
Rachel laughed. “You’re being bad.”
“You have no idea how bad I can be.”
She wavered a little as she stood to make her way to a shower and then some dry toast. “I think I have a pretty good idea.” She rolled her tongue over her bottom lip before saying, “When I don’t feel like I just rose from the dead, do you…uh…want to look for a toothbrush with me?”
His expression was one of total sincerity. “I want to look for all the toothbrushes with you.”
That declaration made her warm all over. And for a moment, she forgot how crappy she felt otherwise.
Then her cell rang from her nightstand. He’d placed it on top of her laptop at some point.
She raised her eyes to meet his.
“I brought it up last night after you’d slept for a solid seven hours.”
That was…sweet.
She glanced at the screen of her cell.
“Kaiya?” Rachel said.
“Rachel,” Kaiya said, excited like always. “Molly said you’re back in town.”
“I am. Hey, sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. Things went a little sideways this summer.”
Travis stood, his gaze holding hers as he moved behind her and pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. Then he moved to pull on his shirt.
“I wasn’t calling about that,” Kaiya said, even as Rachel’s gaze tracked Travis’s movements.
“Molly said you do the personal assistant thing, and I’m drowning over here.
I was hoping we might be able to talk? I just hit international sales director level.
Now there are all these meetings I’m trying to keep track of, and orders to put through, and I could just really use some help. ”
Oh, well… Rachel helped. That’s what Rachel did.
She rolled her tongue over her bottom lip, widening her eyes in Travis’s direction.
This was good. Great, even. Fantastic. “I’d love to talk to you about what I do,” Rachel said, hoping to keep an air of professionalism even as her heart beat faster.
She grabbed a pen and made a new list so the sieve of her mind wouldn’t forget this later.
“I’m getting over this stomach bug thing, but can we get together later this week? ”
“Yes.” Kaiya’s voice filled with her smile. “Absolutely. That would be amazing. Also…”
“What’s up?”
“This is weird…” Kaiya let out a sigh. “I told myself I wouldn’t make this weird.”
“It’s okay, you can tell me whatever you need.”
“I know some of your other clients had been difficult in the past.” The smile in Kaiya’s voice dimmed, just a little. Barely noticeable, really. But Rachel did notice.
“I just wanted to assure you that I’m not a dick with work stuff,” Kaiya finished.
Rachel grinned. She glanced at Travis and smiled bigger because he was standing there in her bedroom. He looked as happy as she felt inside. “I appreciate that.”
She wrapped up the call with a promise to meet later, and then she met Travis’s gaze once more.
“That sounded promising,” he said, not moving, just standing there like he belonged.
Which, for the record, he did.
“Maybe things will work out, after all,” Rachel mused. “For now Mama’s also being extra nice,” he said. “She was worried about you yesterday and made it a point not to leave until your fever broke. I think she’s coming around to you and me being an us.”
Rachel turned back. “Seriously?”
“She spent a lot of time yesterday cleaning up downstairs. Man, your boys were like an unsupervised tornado while you were out.”
Gah. This was exactly why she couldn’t get sick. Ever.
Ever again.
Speaking of… “Where are the kids?”
“Gavin took them to his house with the dogs. They wanted to make you lunch today. Brady suggested they grab you some soup from that place you like over on Champa.”
The thought of food was not a welcome one. For the first time since she could remember, “I’m not ready to think about eating just yet.”
“When you are, they’re waiting for the go-ahead.”
She grabbed new clothes from her dresser—nothing special, just a clean set of yoga pants and a sleeveless T-shirt with a shelf bra built in. “Thank you for staying.”
Travis swallowed, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing up and down. “I think we need to discuss that.”
“The staying?” She wasn’t following.
“The fact that I don’t want to leave.” Oh. That.
“Do you think we’re at the stage of the relationship where we should be having sleepovers?” she asked. “I don’t want to confuse the boys. Maybe we’re more at the almost-sleepover stage of things.”
“Were they confused when Dakota and Gavin had sleepovers?”
She shook her head. “It’s totally different.”
“Because I’m their uncle?” he asked.
“Because I’m their mom.”
He sauntered toward her. Well, he stalked, really. Then he wielded the southern. “Rach. I’m not goin’ to push you on this. But I want you to know that I want this, when you’re ready to give it. I want it all, and I’m ready to wait.”
She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes.
“Rach,” he said, his voice serious.
She met his gaze, and he didn’t quite look like himself. “You just let me know, okay?”
Oh. Oh, no.
“I’m not…” She was so not ready for that. Not at all. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be…”
He didn’t seem disappointed. Not at all. And that was weird. It was weird, right? Yes, odd. Except, this just felt like a conversation, not a grand declaration of love.
“You just let me know.” he said, pinning her in place with his gaze. “I won’t ask again.”
Oh.
A lump formed in her throat.
He moved his palm against her jaw. She couldn’t help it, she turned her cheek in to his touch.
“Okay,” she murmured against his hand.
“Okay.” The conversation apparently done, Travis headed for the hallway. “Just toast?”
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Yes. Nothing heavy. Just…toast. Maybe some tea?”
“All right then. Toast and tea.” He gave her a flash of a grin that made her seriously wish she wasn’t on a dry toast diet because she sorta wanted to jump him right then.
And given her previous day’s activities, that was a horrible idea.
So she went to shower instead. This time, she didn’t step on the scale first, because there was nothing it could tell her she didn’t already know.
She was probably always going to have her curves, and it didn’t matter, because she was finding she also had a whole heaping of happy. So she was going to hold on tight to it for as long as it let her.
The thing about perfection, she realized, staring at that damn scale, was that it didn’t really exist. It’s a phantom that drove her to try to do better when she was doing her very best to begin with.
Turned out, sometimes making a mess of things actually made her happier.