“He did carry me out of there, Mom. I—”
“So, you weren’t planning to leave?”
I dip the brush again and refocus on cutting a sharp edge before I answer. “I was thinking about leaving all morning. That’s what we talked about, remember, when I called you. Nathan and I aren’t right for each other. I was too scared to say it before the wedding, and I was wrong to leave today, but… thankfully a friend was there to talk some sense into me.”
“A friend,” my mother repeats as though I’m talking shit. It’s a familiar tone. One she’d use with me when I stayed too late at Nikki’s when I was a kid. “Well, if you won’t talk to your father and you won’t listen to me, I guess you’ve made your choice. Just tell me one thing. Do you really trust this guy?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation, my heart thumping as I wonderwhyI trust him.
I shouldn’t.
I have no reason.
In fact, I have a negative balance on the ledger of reasons to trust him, yet I do.
“He’s kind, Mom. Really, I’ll be okay.”
Footboards creak in the hallway as he makes his way back toward the bedroom. “I’ll call you again soon. Love you.”
“Love you more.” She grumbles something to my father before hanging up the line, and I shake my head as I go back to painting, waiting for the bedroom door to swing open, butterflies swarming in my stomach like a hoard of moths on a porch light.
“You don’t even have a window open? You’re going to gas yourself out.” Rhett steps across the creaking wood floor and slides open both windows, letting a fresh evening breeze in. I’m thankful for it and feeling a little dumb I didn’t think of it myself. I paint houses for a living. I know to crack a window at this point.
“How are your friends?” I ask, still focused on my brush so he doesn’t think I was waiting around for him to come back. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he groans. “They’re annoying, but they mean well.”
“How so?”
“Oh,” he clears his throat and dumps paint from the can into the waiting tray, “deadlines. They wanted this lake house done yesterday. Imagine my surprise when I come in here and you’re already working. You know I was kidding about putting you to work, right? You don’t have to paint. It is your wedding day and all.”
This has me laughing out loud. “Oh, right. My wedding day. What am I thinking?”
He rolls a brush into the paint and smooths it onto the wall with long hard strokes, his biceps flexing with each push of the handle. “I think I have some cake mix if you really want to celebrate.”
“Yeah?” I say quickly, suddenly realizing I’m starving. “What kind?”
“Chocolate, I think.”
“And you haven’t baked it yet?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head. “I don’t bake, but I could tonight, considering it’s your wedding night and all, though I can’t promise the decorations will be as nice as the ones you had waiting for you.”
I try to focus on the edging and not his muscles, but it’s a losing battle with his corded forearms taking the win. “I think we should definitely make a cake.”
He stares down at me for a long moment, his gaze softer than before. “You’re so beautiful. I don’t understand why you’d ever put up with someone treating you the way Nathan did.”
I pinch my lips together and focus on the paint brush as it slides against the lower edge of the wall. I’ve already gone over this part at least twice, but I need to focus on something other than his body as I talk or I won’t be able to think straight. “It’s funny the things you say you’ll never put up with in a relationship, isn’t it? I mean, I never thought I’d let someone touch me the way he did. Hell, I never thought I’d let anyone talk to me the way he did either, but I did,” I laugh, “and I was about to marry the man. Had you not shown up, I’d probably be halfway to New Zealand right now.”
“New Zealand, huh? Another of his ideas or is that where you wanted to go?”
I grin. “Not my idea. I’d have been happy to rent one of these lake houses for the week, but Nathan likes grand gestures. He had some villa rented out for us on the coast. A helicopter glacier landing, hot springs mud treatments, a cruise out to the fjords, and some wine estate tour thing.” I shrug and refocus on the line of paint until I’m as far as I can go without crawling beneath him.
“Sounds like any woman’s dream.”
“Not mine. I like low-key. Something without a lot of travel time or set up. A place where the whole goal is to relax and unwind, find romance, ya know?”
“Like a little cabin tucked next to a river?”