Wish You Were Here, page 17
‘I think your parents are great too.’ And he did. He could admit he liked Peggy fussing over him and worrying if he was eating enough. He hadn’t had much in the way of a maternal figure in his life and some lonely, empty part of his heart craved it. As for Ray—he reminded Tim of Deano’s father. A big, tough, no-nonsense bloke who believed in hard work and honesty. Maybe it was the fact they’d both lost sons that made them seem so similar. It was hard to mask that kind of pain, and he saw the toll it had taken on both of them.
‘The thing is,’ she said, not looking at him again as she picked her words carefully, ‘I don’t want them to get their hopes up.’
‘About?’ he prodded, unsure where this was going.
‘About you and me. They’ve got this thing in their head about me becoming some bitter, old spinster because I gave up on relationships and a chance at a “normal” life,’ she said, her hands forming quotation marks pointedly. ‘If they suspect there’s anything going on between us, they’re only going to get excited and start planning a wedding by the end of the month.’ She pulled a face that was probably meant to be droll but instead twisted at the end in a way that made his heart stutter. ‘I don’t think it’s wise to get involved with you when you’ll be up and leaving as soon as you finish the cabin. I can’t handle seeing their disappointment.’
He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but it wasn’t the blunt honesty she just gave him. All his head heard was wedding and leaving. He hadn’t been thinking any further than his attraction to her, because his future hadn’t been something he’d been giving much thought to. Before he arrived here, it had been looking kind of bleak. Now, though … dare he actually think about it? Suddenly there was a sliver of light in the dark chasm inside him and he saw a glimpse of sunshine trying to peek in. He almost scoffed at how melodramatic he was being, but something had definitely changed and—he didn’t mind admitting—it kind of blew his mind.
‘Maybe I don’t have to leave after the cabin,’ he said slowly.
She did look up at him then, but it wasn’t exactly encouraging. ‘We can’t afford to pay you a full-time wage,’ she said sadly. ‘I mean, yes, we could use a second set of hands about the place some days, but there’s not enough work to justify hiring someone full-time, and on-call, part-time isn’t really a great option for workers.’
‘Maybe I could look for a job somewhere locally.’
She studied him for a few moments before asking, ‘Why would you want to stay around here?’
‘I like it,’ he said, then shrugged, unwilling to reveal too much in case it came out sounding dumb. ‘Your parents have been really good to me and I’m not in any hurry to leave. I’m pretty low maintenance—I don’t have debt or many bills. I’ve got a couple of investments, so money’s not an issue for me right now. There’s nowhere else I have to be.’
‘The longer you stay, the harder it will be for Mum and Dad to say goodbye, and they’ve already lost so much.’
‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’ she asked warily.
‘Will it be hard for you to say goodbye too?’
‘Of course it will,’ she said, looking down.
‘Well, if I stick around, I won’t have to say goodbye, will I?’
‘It’s one thing to be on holiday, but it’s another to actually live and work here. You might get sick of not being in a city where everything’s at your fingertips and you don’t have to travel for hours to get to a store.’
‘I’m sure I’ll cope,’ he said. ‘Would it change your mind about me if you knew I was planning on staying around?’
‘Well … I guess … I mean, I don’t know,’ Reggie said, sounding a little flustered. He really didn’t want to put her on the spot like this, but he needed to know if this attraction was one-sided.
He caught her eye and looked at her squarely. ‘Do you want me to stay around?’
Chapter 29
Reggie held Tim’s searching gaze and felt her breath catch at the question. Do I want him to stay?
Yes.
The thought of him leaving actually made her chest hurt. In here, snug and surprisingly warm, she felt protected from the outside world, and it had nothing to do with the stupid tent and everything to do with the man beside her. He’d saved her from serious injury—if not worse—today, and she knew he’d do it again without hesitation. She’d been fighting a losing battle trying not to think about him, but the damn man was everywhere, and their kiss kept replaying in her head at night. She had almost convinced herself that she’d been exaggerating how good it was, until their kiss moments ago had proved beyond a doubt that she hadn’t been imagining it.
‘Yes,’ she finally said. What was the point in denying it? Her heart gave another little skip when she saw his lips twitch into a smile, but then it stopped completely as he drew her into the warmth of his kiss. She caught the tangy scent of something he wore—deodorant maybe, as she doubted Tim was the type to wear cologne—mixed with the fresh smell of rain and a musky maleness of his skin as she pressed herself against him.
He shrugged off his jacket and arranged it beneath them, then gently eased her onto it, following her down as he deepened their kiss. Never before had she connected so intensely with another person. She wanted to kiss him forever, but suddenly there was a more urgent need to be fulfilled, and kissing wasn’t enough anymore. Her impatient fingers went to his shirt and she helped him out of it before fumbling with her own and swearing as she got tangled in her coat, thrashing about like a crazed octopus as she tried to dislodge her elbow from the arm of one sleeve. The thought flashed through her mind that this was probably how that calf had felt the other day. She shook the image from her head, trying not to panic as she realised she was really stuck.
‘Stop pulling it for a minute,’ Tim said, trying to ease away enough to help.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Reggie muttered, then yelped as Tim tried to push her arm backwards. ‘It won’t go any further, it’s stuck.’
There was a mix of grunts and heavy breathing as they both struggled to manoeuvre their bodies inside the cramped confines of the tent. With a final tug, her arm came free of her sleeve, punching Tim in the face in the process, and extracting a harsh curse.
‘Sorry!’ she gasped.
‘Bloody hell. Who would have thought two grown adults could make getting undressed so freaking difficult.’
‘Well I don’t think either of us is a contortionist,’ Reggie muttered, lying back puffed but finally free of her shirt. ‘Holy shit, it’s cold,’ she said as the freezing air touched her near-naked skin.
Tim lowered himself on top of her and the sudden touch of his warm skin sent a bolt of electricity through her. She instantly forgot about the cold. ‘Better?’ he asked, his breathing a little unsteady as she instinctively ran her hands along his back and arched against him.
‘So much better,’ she sighed as he bent his head and ran his lips along the side of her neck.
The rain had stopped and the cloud cover seemed to be clearing. Tim could see a few twinkling stars that hadn’t been there earlier. It was still freezing outside, but it was warm tucked inside the cocoon of coats and the survival blanket. Metalized polyethylene mightn’t be the cosiest material for a blanket, but it sure as hell was doing its job of reflecting their body heat—and they’d just produced a ton of that.
As he lay there now, with one arm tucked under his head and the other under Reggie’s, who lay on her side snuggled into him with one leg threaded between his, he found himself struggling to make sense of his good fortune. The difference a few weeks had made to his life was nothing short of miraculous.
He’d left his life behind and hit the road with no plan other than to try to make peace with the nightmares and guilt he carried inside him, and here he was now …
He allowed a long, slow breath to fill his lungs as he tried to sort out the jumble of emotions flowing through him. He’d gone from a loner with no real connection to anyone to suddenly finding a part of him that had been lying dormant for years being slowly woken up. He was caring about things again—about people and, in particular, the MacLeods. They’d welcomed him into their home and shown him what a family looked like. For that experience alone, he’d been humbled, but now, with Reggie … He felt his throat tighten. He hadn’t been expecting to find a partner, and certainly not one like Reggie, but here she was, lying asleep in his arms. Part of him wanted to wake her and tell her all this crazy stuff he was thinking so he could make sense of it, but another part warned him not to act like some weird psycho. He decided to keep his mouth shut and enjoy the moment while he could. He wasn’t about to risk doing anything stupid that might upset this delicate tightrope he was balancing on. Everything was perfect right now. He just hoped it could stay that way.
Several days later, Reggie stared up at the ceiling in the shed and listened to the quiet of the early morning, her body warm and snuggly under the blankets. Beside her she could feel Tim sleeping, one arm slung across her hip keeping her in place. It had been so long since she’d woken up with someone next to her in bed. She’d forgotten how nice it could be.
Her parents would be back this afternoon, which would put an end to this strange honeymoon-like arrangement—well, if your honeymoon revolved around running a farm, she supposed. It hadn’t exactly been real life. For instance, she’d never had someone tag along while she checked cattle, filled up water troughs and slashed walking tracks, who then made love with her at lunch time down by the fairy glen in the middle of the day! That wasn’t real life—that was living because there was no one else around to catch them! She wasn’t sure how things would work once her parents were home.
Reggie was still worried about how this was going to work out. Tim might say he was happy to stick around, but what if he changed his mind in a few months when the novelty wore off? The building work would come to an end shortly, and then he’d be doing odd jobs and farm work to fill his day. He was a builder—not a farmer—and his talents would be wasted hanging around here.
She let her eyes wander around the little flat that had once been her brother’s and felt the funny pressure on her chest that started whenever she thought about Brent. She wondered if that was what people meant when they said they could feel their loved ones around them. Usually whenever she thought about Brent it was followed by a pang of sadness and grief, but lately she’d been feeling a weird … awareness? Presence? She wasn’t sure what to call it, but she did know it was different. She still had moments when she felt an overwhelming emptiness and missed him so damn much, but those moments were slowly becoming a little less crippling in their intensity.
Maybe this new phase was simply a coping mechanism to deal with the grief. Besides, she was pretty sure if Brent knew she was sleeping in his bed with someone, he’d have taken any opportunity to make things awkward for her, simply for his own amusement.
The dogs started barking, cutting into her thoughts, and then their bark changed to excited yelping and Reggie swore loudly. She launched herself upright and threw off the blankets as she scrambled out of bed.
‘What the fu—’ Tim grunted as the cold air hit his still-sleeping, warm, naked body.
‘Mum and Dad are back,’ she shouted, pushing her bed hair out of her face as she dropped to her knees, reaching under the bed to find her bra and underwear. She hauled them on and shoved her legs into her jeans, jumping up and down and wriggling herself into them, snagging her shirt from the end of the bed as she went. Not funny, Brent, not funny at all!
Tim watched the whole thing unfold with a dazed kind of bemusement, looking far too bloody sexy, all bare-chested and tousled as he leaned back on his elbows in the bed. Why the hell isn’t he panicking? She searched the floor for her socks but gave up as she heard the car roll to a stop on the gravel outside. She let out another profanity, tugging on one boot before pulling the place apart to find the other one.
‘Where the hell is my other boot?’
Tim gave a soft whistle and she glanced up to find him holding it and wearing a lopsided grin.
‘How did my boot end up in the bed? Never mind, I don’t have time,’ she said irritably, taking the shoe and hopping around the room as she tugged it on.
‘Geez, Reggie, will you calm down before you do yourself damage?’ he said, shaking his head as he watched on.
‘Calm down?’ she exploded, turning on him. ‘My parents are home!’
‘So? I’m sure they’re old enough to accept that their daughter’s having sex.’
Reggie squeezed her eyes shut tightly, before opening them to glare at him across the room. ‘Never use the word sex, and my parents, in the same sentence, ever again.’
His deep chuckle followed her as she crossed to the door, mentally trying to prepare herself to face her mum and dad and outright lie to the pair of them. They were going to see right through her—they always had whenever she tried to fib.
She reefed open the door and felt a satisfied smirk on her lips when she heard Tim yelp at the even colder air rushing in. Then she gathered her nerves to put on a bright smile and greet her parents at the house.
Tim dropped back down on his pillows and grinned as he thought about Reggie’s hissy fit as she’d left. He figured she’d be a bit antsy when it came to telling her parents about them, but he’d been planning to talk to her about it today, before they came home. He didn’t really understand why she was so worked up about how they were going to handle the news—it wasn’t like they were a pair of sixteen-year-olds. Maybe country people were a bit more old-fashioned—but, although they were older, he didn’t get the feeling that Ray and Peggy were that old-fashioned. Reggie had said her brother and his fiancé had practically lived together on and off over the years, so he didn’t see what the big deal was. But for some reason it was to Reggie, and he tried to ignore the niggling concern that everything might fall apart before it even had a chance to really start.
Technically it was Sunday and he didn’t need to be working on the cabin, but with Reggie gone the bed seemed lonely, and he wasn’t tired, so he dragged himself up and got dressed, stoking the fire to take the bitter sting of cold out of the air.
It was colder today than it had been since he’d arrived and he looked out the window expecting to see snow, but there wasn’t any; it just felt cold enough for it. He’d never been much of a fan of winter before—the jury was still out on whether he was fully converted—but up here there was a certain beauty to the cold. The bare trees and dull paddocks in their whisky and straw colours should look depressing, yet they were anything but. The landscape was vivid in its striking extremes. On the days when the sky was an endless blue, the colours lit up, and when the clouds came over all ominous and dark, the landscape changed again to something mysterious and powerfully beautiful. He’d never seen a place like this before, and it had captured his heart in ways he’d never imagined possible.
He knew Reggie still had her doubts about how long he’d stay, and he’d tried his best to convince her that he had meant what he’d said. But in the end it would have to be something he proved to her. He wanted a fresh start somewhere without the memories—the memories of Dean and the boys. He knew in his heart this was the place.
He’d meant it when he’d told her he was happy to move to Armaglen or somewhere else in the area to work—he’d have to in order to make a new life for himself, and the thought gave him a sense of purpose he hadn’t felt in a long time.
But first, he needed to prove to Reggie that he was serious about giving this thing between them a fighting chance, and he wasn’t quite sure how that was going to play out now that their time alone had come to an abrupt halt. For now, though, he’d work on the cabin and keep his head down. He’d just have to let Reggie take the lead on where they went from here and hope he’d become important enough for her to realise that they were worth fighting for.
Chapter 30
Reggie paused outside the front door and took a deep breath before pushing it open and walking inside, a sunny smile plastered on her face.
‘You’re home,’ she said, leaning down to kiss her mother and then turning to hug her father. ‘I’m so glad the doctor’s report was good,’ she added, putting the kettle on and taking down some cups. She’d spoken to them two nights earlier and they’d told her what the doctor had said. Skipping on to a new topic, she said, ‘The calves are all a fair size and looking good. There’s still one cow who hasn’t dropped, but she looks like she should any day. I haven’t checked on her this morning, yet.’ Reggie realised she was babbling. Stop talking, you fool. ‘How was Sydney? Bet you’re glad to be out of the traffic.’ She was smiling like an idiot as she noticed her parents exchange a look. They knew. Somehow, they knew she was hiding something. Maybe because you haven’t shut up since you walked through the bloody door. Shut. Up! But she couldn’t. The more nervous she got, the more verbal insanity fell from her mouth. ‘Coffee?’ she asked extra cheerily.
‘Darling, is everything all right?’ her mother asked.
‘Did you back the tractor into the side of the shed again?’ her father asked.
One time. She’d done it one time and ever since it was the first thing he always asked her if he thought there was a problem. ‘The shed’s fine,’ she told him. ‘Everything’s fine. I’ve just missed you.’ She looked back at her mother, and then hastily lowered her gaze, positive there was a big sign in bold writing hanging over her head saying, ‘I slept with Tim … and I liked it!’
As she spooned some coffee granules into the cups, her mother asked, ‘How’s Tim?’
Reggie swore under her breath as her hand jumped and the coffee missed the cup. Shit. She reached for a cloth and swept the mess into her hand, heading across to the sink to dispose of it, then swore quietly again as she caught sight of Tim through the kitchen window, heading towards the house. ‘Ah, he’s fine. I think. I’m not sure—I haven’t really seen him around much.’
