Breathless Awakening (The Breathless Series) (15 page)

Dinner was relatively quiet. We sat and stared into each other’s eyes as if we were having complete conversations with each other, but we never opened our mouths to say a single word. The evening was so peaceful and serene. We knew there were no words to express the way we felt in that moment and trying would only take away the perfection.

The walk on the beach after dinner was just as perfect. Our hands intertwined, we walked on the edge of the wet sand with an occasional wave washing over my bare toes, and Luke was even nice enough to carry my shoes for me. Looking out over the water, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

“Look! Are those dolphins? Do you mind if we sit down and watch them? They are so adorable!”

“Anything for you. Why don’t we walk over to that log so you don’t get sand in that lovely dress of yours?”

I leaned up against Luke, nestling myself into the crook of his shoulder. Everything felt so perfect to be here in that moment with him. The longer we sat there watching the moonrise, the more I could feel his body tense.

“Isn’t this amazing? I wish I had brought my camera with us tonight. I can’t wait to see what kind of pictures I can get while we are here.” Warmth flooded through me as I looked out over the ocean, the breeze cooling my skin as it blew gently across the waves to shore. “I just want to take pictures of it all to remember how perfect our honeymoon was.”

“Cai, angel, there’s something I need to tell you.” Luke paused as he took a moment to gather his thoughts. I could tell something was weighing heavily on his mind, but what could it be? Everything had been perfect since we arrived. “I got a call from Zane today while you were in the shower.”

I knew something was bothering Luke so I tried to make light of the situation. His mood wasn’t lightened in the least. “Was he trying to interrupt us having sex? That seems like something he would do.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the image. All the guys probably sat around trying to guess when we would be in the middle of passionate sexual acts. Well, knowing them they would probably think that was all we were doing.

“Angel, he was calling to let me know that your dad is in the hospital.”

“What?! And you are just now telling me this?” I stood up quickly and turned toward the room before Luke was able to reach up and grab my wrist. “Let go of me. I need to go call and see what’s going on. Is he okay? Why didn’t anyone call me?”

“Calm down.” That was not the right thing to say to me right now. The glare that I aimed at him could have frozen hell. “They think he had a heart attack, but when they got him to the hospital and stabilized they decided everything was fine. Your mom didn’t want to worry you since it evidently wasn’t anything major, but Zane thought we needed to know.”

“Nothing major? It’s a fucking heart attack, and you’re damn right we needed to know. Dammit, Luke, it would have been nice to know a few hours ago!”

He pulled me back down into his lap this time and kissed me. The touch of his lips, a hand on my hip as he pulled me close into him, stopped the world. I was able to mentally step back, take a breath, and relax. “Cailyn, there is nothing we can do tonight. Even if we went straight to the airport, we wouldn’t be able to get out of here and get home tonight. Let’s just try to make the best of the night. We can call them in the morning to see what the doctors are saying. I’m sure if anything were major your mother or aunt would have called you by now.”

“I guess you’re right, but it’s my daddy. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to him.” When I looked up into Luke’s eyes, I saw him drifting into the darkness that he buried himself in anytime he was in pain. Usually that meant he was thinking of his deployment and the atrocities that happened there, or his mother. I had little doubt that the pain in Luke’s eyes meant that he was thinking of his mother. Wrapping my arms around him, I gave him a hug to comfort both of us.

We sat like that for about thirty minutes before I looked up and saw a turtle crawling its way up the shore. Nudging Luke, I pointed in the direction of the turtle and saw another one coming up the shore. This may not be a perfect night in a perfect world, but it was as close to it as we could seem to manage.

Chapter Eighteen

Zane

Much to my surprise, all Rhylie had was some fruity citrus body wash and shampoo, but at least I was clean. Rhylie hadn’t told me how long she planned to be up at the hospital so I decided to make myself at home as she suggested. I had pulled out my bag from my car before the guys left so I had my stuff, but the problem was I had only packed through today. Plans were only made for me to stay through today to help with the moving.

I had decided to wash my clothes while I took a shower so I could get by until I could get to a store tomorrow and pick up a couple extra things. Looking in the kitchen for a snack, I heard the dryer stop. Picking up my phone to text Rhylie my stomach growled ferociously from the hunger.

Me: Hey, how long are you going to be? I’m starving and you don’t have a lot of real food, just rabbit food.

Just before I passed the front door as I headed down the hall, it swung open and scared the crap out of me. Jumping back to avoid being hit by the door, the towel fell to the floor. Rhylie stepped in, closed the door, and I did a quick turnaround before bending down to get the towel. She whistled before I was able to cover myself from the embarrassment that hit me.

“Nice ass!”

“Thanks, I guess.”

We stood in the hallway to her apartment and were at a standstill. I needed past her to get to the bathroom to get to my laundry while she needed past me to set the food down in the kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind, but I decided to do some laundry.”

“And here I thought you were waiting for me at the door in your towel to show off your ass and those amazing abs.”

“Sure, that’s what I was doing.” I realized that we weren’t going to be able to squeeze by each other without making the situation even more awkward with the towel, so I backtracked into the kitchen. As soon as she passed me, I darted down the hallway as quickly as I could.

After getting dressed, I headed back to the kitchen to join her for dinner. I was starving, and after looking at what she kept in her cupboards, I was really hoping that she had picked up something edible. Whatever it was, it smelled amazing as I turned the corner.

“Rabbit food, huh? What’s up doc?”

“Aww, you wascally wabbit. How’s Terry doing?”

“The hospital got him stabilized, but they won’t run any tests until tomorrow since it is the weekend. They are just monitoring him now, but everything seems to be fine. Both Aileen and Terry were very appreciative that you stayed back to help out with things.”

Sitting there eating with Rhylie was nice. Having met only the day before, we didn’t really know each other, but there seemed to be a nice connection. Something about Rhylie’s attitude was appealing, spunky and assertive, with just enough seriousness that you don’t know when to take her seriously. I couldn’t help but thinking that everything about her was a tad intoxicating.

Rhylie told me about how her aunt and mother had owned the salon when she was growing up. As a little girl, she had spent the summers learning many lessons in life while playing there. I could only imagine what a little girl would pick up over the years of women sitting there gossiping with no men around to hear what they said. That sure would explain some of that sass.

As time went on, they started to let her work there, and eventually the mother’s health went downhill with cancer. The subject was so close to home for me that I zoned out thinking about my own mother’s battle. I had to have missed a couple minutes of the conversation because Rhylie was snapping her fingers in front of me to get my attention.

“Sorry, I just kind of spaced out there for a second.”

“A second? Zane, I don’t think you have blinked in about three minutes. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I was just thinking about my mother.”

“Why don’t you tell me about her? She had to be pretty special to make you tune me out completely.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it. There isn’t a lot to talk about that doesn’t hurt. I was young. She got cancer. She died. That’s about it.”

I didn’t feel like eating anymore. People had been trying to get me to talk about Mom for years, but I couldn’t do it. If I got up and walked away right now I was going to upset Rhylie, and I didn’t want to do that, and so I found myself sitting there for a few more tortuous minutes. Poking the food around the plate, I realized that I couldn’t bring myself to eat anymore.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Rhylie got up from her side of the table and walked around behind me. Her arms draped over my shoulders and enveloped me in a hug that felt like it could lift the world off my shoulders. As she pulled back from the hug, I found my hand reaching up to grab hers, gave it a slight squeeze, and tried to find the words to thank her even though nothing came out.

Her hands went to my shoulders and started to knead into the tension that was there. I don’t know how much of it was stress induced and how much was from the physicality of today, but either way she sure knew what she was doing. Within a few minutes, I felt like I was five years younger.

I leaned my head back to look up at her. “Holy shit, you are good at that. I didn’t even know that some of those spots were bothering me until you started working the knots out of them.”

“What can I say, I have many hidden talents.” Something mischievous laced her comment, but she kept a straight face. Was she coming onto me?

The best thing to do was call it a night. If she was trying to start something between the two of us I wasn’t expecting it, but I wasn’t ready to try to start anything. Being her guest I did not want to read into anything. “Well, I think I’m going to call it a night. Between the hot shower, a full stomach and that amazing massage…I’m beat. Today has been a long day and your futon is calling my name.”

Before I could stand up from the table, I felt Rhylie’s curls brush across my cheek. “Wouldn’t you rather me be screaming your name?”

Every bit of doubt vanished from my mind. “Rhylie, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” I could see the sparkle in her eye start to diminish. “It’s not you, I just, I’m not one to have a fling. I watched Luke do that for years to girls and saw what it did to them. He never saw how much it hurt them when he treated them as another night in bed. You are a great girl from what I can tell, and you are gorgeous. You deserve more than that.”

The smile came back, but the sparkle was still dim. I wasn’t sure what was going through her mind, but when did a guy ever really know what women were thinking? “How about a movie instead? If you are really that tired then I don’t want to keep you up, but it’s still a little early.”

“I could do a movie, as long as it isn’t some horrible eighties movie.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that to you. There’s some popcorn in the cupboard. Do you mind popping it while I get the movie started?”

I walked to the couch with the popcorn, trying to grab the most buttery pieces that I could find before they were gone. As I sat down, I saw that she had started The Notebook. “Can I retract my former comment? Can we go for a horrible eighties movie?”

“Nope, you made yourself clear, no eighties movies.”

I sat down on the couch to endure the movie and sat the bowl of popcorn between us. The evening had a bit of a chill to it and as the popcorn slowly disappeared, I somehow ended up with Rhylie leaning up against me on the couch. Knowing that it was childish, I did the old fake yawn and placed my arm around her shoulders. She almost purred before snuggling up closer to me.

A few times the movie had me almost in tears, but Rhylie seemed untouched through the entire thing. The credits started to roll across the screen and I looked down to find her sound asleep. I didn’t want to wake her, and truth be told, I figured this was more comfortable than the futon. Brushing back her hair, I gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead, and held her until I fell asleep too.

Rhylie

The sun was shining through the window and woke me up. I couldn’t figure out how since my room faced west. Why was my pillow so firm and what was poking me in the side of my head? I pried my groggy eyes open to see that I was laying in someone’s lap.

If that wasn’t enough to wake me, I realized that if the sun was up I had overslept. I guess that’s what happens when you fall asleep with your alarm in the other room. Of course it didn’t hurt anything that I was sleeping on a really hot guy.

Shifting my weight to sit up I must have disturbed the couch enough to wake Zane. “Good morning. What’s with putting on a sappy movie and making me watch it, but you don’t even make it through the whole thing? Were you trying to torture me?”

“Me? I wouldn’t do that. I was just trying to let you cry without any witnesses. Wouldn’t want you to get your reputation tarnished or anything by you crying on a first date.” I couldn’t believe I let that slip out of my mouth. I’m going to scare him off, but was that a bad thing. This wasn’t meant to be a date. I didn’t mean to come onto him last night. Being single for so long made me not even know what I was doing anymore.

Jumping off the couch, I ran towards the bathroom. “Oh no, I need to hop in the shower real quick. I need to get to the salon pretty early, but I can drop you off at Luke and Cailyn’s on the way. Unfortunately, you’ll be stuck there. I’ll try to swing by with lunch or something if I get a break, or at least let Megan and Aileen know to bring you something.”

What was I going to do? It was going to be bad enough when Liz found out that I let him stay here, but if I let it slip that I fell asleep with him on the couch it was going to be disastrous. That was assuming the worst didn’t happen and no one else found out.

My shower was quick and hot, but not only because of the water temperature. I couldn’t get Zane off my mind. Waking up in his arms didn’t help, but neither did thinking about his bare ass the night before in the hallway. I just wanted to dig my nails into it until I left marks.