by Lucy Kevin
“Maybe you’d better stay a little lower for a while,” Nicholas suggested. “At least until you’re bigger.”
“I am big,” Charlotte insisted. “I’m nearly six and a half!”
“Not too big to play in the sandbox, surely?” Rachel asked.
In lieu of answering, Charlotte immediately ran off to play in the sand. As Rachel stared after her daughter, she looked a little bleak. “Maybe I shouldn't have panicked just now, but she's just so important to me...”
“You and Charlotte are amazing together.” He didn't want to make the mistake of pushing her too far, too fast, but he had to ask, “What happened, Rachel? Where is her father?”
Rachel led the way back to the bench, and they sat together in silence for a few moments, before she finally said, “Plenty happened with her father, back when I was younger. He was the only boy back then who could keep up with me when I wanted to go out climbing, or skiing, or any other wild thing I could think of.”
“What changed?”
“Guy was fun, but he was irresponsible. He didn’t see that at some point, you have to take life seriously. The moment things got serious when I found out I was pregnant...he left.”
“Then he was a selfish idiot and not worth either one of you.”
“I know that.” Rachel touched her fingertips to her lips then, and he knew she was thinking of the kiss that had almost just happened right here on the park bench. “You’re a good-looking, successful guy in his thirties. Most men like you would be married with kids by now, but you’ve never wanted that, have you?”
He wouldn't lie to her, even if it might make the going easier right now. “I've always taken life as it comes. I never had a firm plan, because I had never met the right person.” Until now.
“How are you ever going to meet the right person if you keep running from place to place?”
“I’m not your ex,” he replied in a gentle voice.
“I know you’re not, because Guy was just a kid. We both were. You're different. I've seen that again and again since you and I met at the ferry. And yet...”
“I’m doing what I love, Rachel. And I know you understand, because I saw your face on the cliff today, saw how full of joy you were as you made your way to the top with me.” He reached out to cup her cheek, partly because he couldn't resist touching her, but also because he wanted her to look him in the eye. “The way I see it, doing what I love means that any woman I meet sees the real me. And I've always known that the woman I finally fall in love with will be one I can share those beautiful moments with.” He wanted so badly to kiss her, but knew reaching her this way first was so much more important. “The view from the cliff was beautiful, wasn’t it, Rachel?”
Her eyes were the deepest, most beautiful blue he'd ever seen as she held his gaze. “Yes, it was. So beautiful it took my breath away.”
His heart had never felt so full before. Or so thankful. Especially when she added, “Thank you for catching Charlotte. And thank you for catching me, too.”
He moved his hand from her cheek to take hers in his. “Anytime.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Look, Mommy! I made a picture.”
Rachel turned from the stove to look at the picture her daughter was holding up of two figures on something brown and slightly jagged. “Is that Nicholas and me climbing?”
Charlotte frowned as though it ought to be obvious. “Yes! And I'm going to put it on the fridge so that you can remember what you did today.” The fridge was their own little art gallery with pictures held in place by magnets. After Charlotte took the picture and pinned it in place with a frog-shaped magnet, she asked, “When will I be big enough to go climbing?”
“Not for a long, long time, sweetie. Climbing is dangerous.”
“But you did it.”
“I did,” she agreed, “but Nicholas had to help keep me from falling.”
“I like him, Mommy. Do you like him, too?”
“Of course I do,” Rachel replied, but she could tell that it was clearly time to change the subject from Nicholas, and fast, before Charlotte's questions got any more probing. “In a few years when you're old enough, I'll see about taking you climbing with all the safety equipment. But for now, why don't you help me make dinner? I know you always like it when Aunt Emily lets you help her cook.”
Rachel couldn't help but think about Nicholas as she helped Charlotte shape dough for the rolls they would be having tonight with dinner. She supposed it was inevitable that he'd be in her thoughts after the day they’d had together...especially after how close they’d come to kissing at the playground.
She had been so tempted to close that final inch between them. She could easily imagine what their kiss would have been like. Good. Better than good. Probably the best kiss of her life. In fact, it was impossible to imagine a guy like Nicholas kissing any way but perfectly. And after that…
No, stop that, Rachel! Thinking about Nicholas and his kisses was extremely dangerous—far more than even climbing the cliffs had been.
“Mommy, will he be coming for dinner tonight?”
Rachel started at that, almost dropping the saucepan she had just picked up. “No, sweetie. I don’t think so. Why would he?”
“He came to dinner at Grandma’s house.”
“That’s because he’s staying at Grandma’s house,” Rachel explained. “There’s lots of room for him there.”
“There’s lots of room here.” Charlotte began to gesture with the spoon she was holding, and Rachel quickly lifted her down off the stool before she could knock over any of the hot pans.
“Careful, sweet girl.”
“Okay, Mommy.” It was what she always said when Rachel told her to be careful, but that didn’t stop her from worrying that Charlotte might burn herself, or fall and break a bone...or grow up to fall in love with a man who wasn’t safe.
Rachel forced herself to push that thought aside as she went back to preparing their dinner—meatballs with fresh-baked rolls, one of Charlotte’s favorites. A short while later, when Rachel put a plate in front of her daughter at their small, round dining table, she tried not to think about just how nice it would have been if Nicholas were actually there with them for dinner. Knowing him, he'd likely entertain both of them with stories of all the adventures he'd had in far-flung corners of the world that Rachel had always meant to visit.
When they were finished eating and Rachel had done the dishes, she got out her computer while Charlotte played in the living room. The new report Frank wanted put together wasn’t anywhere near as complex a job as the report for the salvage company, just a quick assessment of the risks for the owner of a small boat who planned to take tourists on whale-watching trips. But though she had put together reports for similar ventures dozens of times, after fifteen minutes of having to look up statistics multiple times, Rachel asked herself, “Why is this so hard?”
“What's hard, Mommy?” Charlotte looked up from playing with her new stuffed rabbit.
“Just something I’m trying to take care of for work.” And she was still trying another fifteen minutes later, because she simply couldn’t focus tonight. Not when what should have been an easy job felt like an intrusion on a day that had included so much happiness and excitement.
She was looking up the figures for the umpteenth time when she suddenly heard a loud clatter. She'd jumped halfway out of her seat by the time she realized that Charlotte had gotten into the closet where Rachel kept the ironing board and had pulled it out.
“Charlotte!” Rachel rushed over to her. “Are you okay?”
“It's heavy, but it didn't fall on me,” Charlotte told her. “I wanted to play surfing, like Nicholas does.”
Nicholas again. Rachel struggled to keep her composure. Trying to copy him could have gotten Charlotte hurt. “I know they have the same shape, but surfboards and ironing boards aren’t the same thing at all. Now, how about if we put it back and then you can pick out a story for the two of us to read?”<
br />
Her daughter reluctantly nodded, but fortunately she loved reading stories together, so she was soon enraptured by the story she’d picked out of her bedroom bookcase. Charlotte often ended up making up her own stories long before they got to the end of whatever book they were reading, which Rachel normally loved. But tonight, she was worried about how everything seemed to be circling back to Nicholas when what had started off as a simple fairy tale quickly turned into a story about a wall-climbing, surfboard-riding princess who wore a dragon-tooth necklace that had magic powers.
Gently directing Charlotte's attention back to the story, Rachel got them back on track for a while, until her little girl abruptly asked, “When is Nicholas coming back to our house again?”
“I'm not sure,” Rachel replied, even though she had been wondering the same thing herself. “He's very busy right now filming a TV show like your Aunt Morgan does.” With that, she kissed Charlotte on the forehead and said, “It’s getting late. Let's get you ready for bed.”
A short while later, Charlotte was in her jammies, her teeth were brushed, and she was just getting ready to turn out the light when she asked, “Mommy, will we see Nicholas tomorrow? He's nice, and I really want to see him.”
Rachel knew how attached her daughter could get to people she cared about. Just look at the way she’d followed Morgan around when she’d first come back to the island. The way she still followed Morgan around, come to think of it. Charlotte made attachments quickly, and those attachments stuck.
“He is very nice,” Rachel agreed, “and it’s good that you like him, but he’s just a friend of Morgan’s. He can't stay here on Walker Island with the rest of us.”
“Why not?”
“Because he has other places he needs to be and things he needs to do. He was never planning to stay.”
“But Aunt Morgan wasn’t going to stay and she did.”
Rachel reached down to stroke Charlotte’s hair. “Your aunt is a special case.”
“Can’t Nicholas be a special case, too?”
I wish. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Things don’t always work out like that.”
“But that’s not fair.”
And as Rachel gathered her daughter into her arms and rocked her until she fell asleep clutching the stuffed rabbit to her chest, she also found herself wishing that Nicholas could stay.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning, Rachel woke up more determined than ever. As soon as Charlotte went to school with her aunt and grandfather, Rachel walked over to her grandmother’s house. She wanted to get there before Nicholas would have a chance to get caught up in hang gliding or skydiving—or whatever adventure was planned for today's filming.
But it was better not to think about his adventures, because from there it was only a small step to imagining herself doing them alongside him. She could all too easily imagine him running through the safety protocols for jumping out of a plane or shouting encouragements as he rode beside her on an extreme bike trail.
Only, there was no way of guaranteeing that he would stay beside her. Which was why she had to take care of the situation now, before things got any more complicated.
When she arrived at Grams’ house, Nicholas was out in the garden, enjoying the plants and the views. His face lit up when he saw her. “It was already a beautiful day, but now that you're here, it's a stunning one.”
From any other man it would have sounded like a practiced line, but for all her wariness, she couldn't shake the sense that Nicholas truly meant it.
“I’m sorry to bother you so early.” Rachel felt more than a little nervous now that they were face-to-face again. “I know you're probably just about to leave to meet with the crew.”
“Given the way you saved the last two shoots, I don’t think anyone is going to complain about you showing up to chat with me for a few minutes this morning. Especially when seeing you always puts a smile on my face.”
But Rachel wasn’t so sure that his smile would remain. Not after she made herself tell him what she knew she needed to say. Or maybe he would just smile and then move on to the next thing by telling himself that “it would all work out” the same way he seemed to handle everything else in his life.
She took a deep breath before saying, “The last few days have been great. I’ve enjoyed them a lot, and so has Charlotte.”
“The two of you deserve to enjoy every day, Rachel. What you have is so special.”
She shook her head. “Please, Nicholas. This isn’t easy for me, and when you say such sweet things, it only makes it harder. You see, Charlotte’s getting confused. She’s been asking about you, wondering where you are all the time.”
“I know exactly how she feels. I want to see more of her—and you—too,” Nicholas said. “Why is that a problem?”
“Because she’s gotten it into her head that you and I are involved.”
“I'd like to be,” he said softly. “And when you're not trying so hard to fight it, I'm pretty sure you would, too.”
Feeling as though he could see right through her, she blurted, “Everything we've done together the past few days has been fun, but we both know that any connection you and I have is just one big accident. I was simply doing some favors for my sister, and they spiraled out of control.”
“Sometimes,” Nicholas said as he moved closer, “being out of control can be a good thing.”
Once upon a time, that was exactly what she'd thought. But she'd learned better by now, which was why she told him, “Only if there’s a safety net there to catch you when things go wrong.”
“I will always be there to catch you if you'll let me.”
Rachel flashed back to the moment when she’d been hanging from the cliff and how he'd kept her perfectly safe by holding her steady from up above. And then, afterward, how close—how very close—they’d come to kissing at the playground.
Knowing she couldn't afford to let him touch her, because she wouldn’t be able to maintain her resolve if he did, she made herself take a step back from him rather than closer, the way she so desperately wanted to. One touch would easily be enough to have her begging for more.
She swallowed hard before making herself finish saying what she'd come to say. “I’m not suggesting that we should completely avoid one another while you're still here on the island. I just need us to keep things simpler and easier for Charlotte to understand. Because it isn’t fair to confuse her by letting her think that we’re more than we are. I need to be able to be honest with her about what’s happening.”
“If you really want to be honest,” he said in a voice that was far more serious than any she'd heard yet from him, “then you need to admit how much I already mean to you. And you also need to understand how much you already mean to me.”
“Just because we've had fun together on the island doesn't mean we're right for one another. You take risks for a living, while I make a living out of avoiding risks!”
Nicholas finally closed the rest of the distance between them and took her hands in his. “Has it ever occurred to you that the reason your daughter thinks there’s something between us is because kids see what’s really there?”
Rachel shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. There can't be anything between us.”
“Yes, there can,” Nicholas insisted, his hand moving up to touch her hair. “Because there already is.”
He didn’t pause this time, didn’t wait for her to be ready for him to make a move as he leaned in and kissed her with more passion than Rachel had ever imagined. His lips met hers like a wave meeting the beach, and like a wave would, the sensation washed over her.
She kissed him back on instinct, unable to stop herself, just the way she’d been unable to keep herself from wanting to climb the cliffs. She thought she could taste the sea on Nicholas’ lips as she kissed him—and it thrilled her that she could taste the danger and adventure in him, too. She held tightly to him as she kissed him breathlessly, wanting—and needing—so much more th
an she ever had before.
She’d marshaled her thoughts so carefully before coming to see him this morning. She’d worked out exactly what she would say. But she had never expected anything like this, for all of her carefully considered reasons to fade away like the mist, torn apart by the pure, sweet sensation of a kiss. All she could feel was hands tangled in her hair, the rapid-fire pace of her heart beating in her chest...and a desire so intense it stunned her.
When they finally pulled apart, Rachel's head was buzzing with even more than the adrenaline rush she'd felt at the top of the cliff. There was nothing safe about kissing Nicholas. And certainly nothing sensible about it.
Yet now that they’d kissed, she felt more alive than she ever had before.
“Rachel?” Nicholas reached out to touch her cheek, and for a moment, just a moment, she thought he might be about to kiss her again. Instead, he softly said, “All the risk assessments in the world can't tell us anything about our connection right now. And they can't tell what’s in our hearts, which is all that really matters. Don't you think it’s okay to take a risk now and then, especially if that risk has a chance to make you truly happy?”
And the truth was that with his kiss still tingling on her lips, it was almost possible to believe that what they felt, what they wanted, counted for more than the rest of the world with all its disasters and dangers.
“Come back and do another segment with me tomorrow.”
Nearly as tempted by that as she'd been by his kiss, instead of outright saying no the way she knew she should, she said, “Haven't they found anyone else they can talk into doing death-defying stunts alongside you?”
“There isn't anyone who has the same chemistry with me.”
“You could work with anyone and make them look good.”
“Not as good as you look,” Nicholas assured her.
Rachel couldn't keep from blushing at hearing that, even though she wasn’t a teenager anymore who would be so easily unnerved by a compliment.
“And trust me,” Nicholas said with one of those gorgeous, warm smiles of his, “there isn’t anyone else that I have the same chemistry with.”