When she should have known better.
For here, before her—all dark coiled energy, all strength and drive and goodness—was the man who’d shown her what it meant to truly feel at home. What it meant to be loved. And she’d thrown it away.
But Rafe was onto something. She was different now. She had moved on. This was all about her future.
“You were right,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “I have changed. More in the past few months than the rest of my life combined. That’s what your twenties are for, right? Taking leaps? Making mistakes? Figuring out who you are?”
She must have hit a nerve, as he grunted. It sounded as if it was in agreement.
But then he asked the hardest question of all. “Would you have stayed, would you have had his child, had he not...?”
“Cheated on me with a plethora of women?”
Rafe made no response.
“I’d thought, at one time, that would be the case. A time when I was lonelier than I’d ever imagined I could be. I wondered then if a child might be the answer. Might fix us. But I held back. I thought I wasn’t ready, when the truth was I knew it wasn’t right.”
She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Turns out he’d had a vasectomy. Years ago. No intention of letting an accidental pregnancy get in the way of his career. He told me the day I found out about my fertility issues. As if it was a good thing.”
“Sable,” he said, his voice subterranean.
“Dodged a bullet there, right? Literally!”
Her joke fell flat. For beyond the inviolable, unblinking facade, Rafe’s whole countenance was stormy. As if he was imagining all the places around Radiance one could easily hide a dead body.
“You are not my fall-back, Rafe,” Sable repeated. Then took a calculated risk, saying, “You’re the best man I’ve ever known. And I’ve loved this baby of mine, this baby that does not yet exist, in my head for so long, how can I not want the best for her?”
“Her?” he repeated, his voice rough.
Was that a flicker? A softening?
“Could be a him. We’d have to wait and see.”
His eyes were so dark now, she couldn’t make out the centre. But she had his complete attention.
A husky note threaded through her voice as she said, “Say yes, Rafe. Do this for me.”
He laughed, though there was no humour in it. Then he growled, loudly, as he ran two hands over his face. “You’re not getting a yes. But—and I can’t believe I’m even saying this—it’s not a no. What it is, is enough for tonight. I’m going to Sydney tomorrow to finish the Pontiac deal. To get some distance so I can think straight. But for now, let me take you home.”
For a moment she thought it was an invitation—and all her girl parts jumped to attention. Till she realised he meant her home. Her mother’s place.
“Thanks. But I think I’ll go it alone.” Things had ended well, but precariously. She did not want the chance to ruin it. She turned on her heel, wrapped her coat about her, and walked. Throwing, “Come find me when you get back,” over her shoulder.
Rafe caught up to her. “Never know who might be out on a night like this. Werewolves. Abductors. The McGlinty brothers.”
“Don’t the McGlinty brothers work for you?”
“Right. So they do. And they’re actually great boys. If they saw you out and about they’d likely offer to drop you home too.”
“Radiance. It’s gone all mellow in its old age.”
“No place like home,” said Rafe, and Sable felt a clutch in her chest.
“You’re really going to walk with me unless I let you drive, aren’t you?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Fine. Drop me home. Where’s your car?”
Rafe motioned to the astounding line-up of muscle cars under the awning on the other side of the petrol pumps. “Take your pick.”
It was Sable’s turn to laugh, but hers was real. Like air bubbles popping in her chest. “Seriously? Are they all yours?”
“Till we’ve done them up and someone buys them.”
“Are they safe out here?” She couldn’t imagine them lasting a day in LA. Even in the Hills cars like these would be kept under lock and key.
He cocked his head. Said, “It’s Radiance.”
Which, she figured, was answer enough.
“Lead the way.”
She did. In the end choosing a midnight-blue Charger with enough grunt when Rafe gunned the engine she felt it in her throat.
Glancing across the console, Rafe’s profile in stark relief, shoulders relaxed, in his happy place, made her ache, just a little, for how things had been.
“Ready?” he asked, giving her a look. A look that made her mouth go dry.
She nodded, and sat back. No longer able to ignore the spark burning brightly between them. Now she simply chose not to act on it.
CHAPTER SIX
BY THE TIME they rounded the bend, and the peak of her mother’s gabled witchy roof slunk into sight, Sable was ready to leap from the car.
All that moonlight pouring through the car windows. The warmth of the man beside her. The radio playing softly. It was like stepping back in time. Except she used to sit with one foot tucked up on the seat, the other on the dash, her head tilted to watch him. All cool and capable and hers.
She’d yabber on about some new spot she’d found on one of her forest walks, and he’d listen, an elbow on the window frame, a slight smile on his face. Or he’d glance her way, his gaze filled with enough promise to make her toes curl.
Back in the now, Sable kept both feet firmly on the floor, and her eyes front. But the snippets of their recent conversation swirling in her head did her no favours.
“You’ve found yourself some inner steel. It suits you. A great deal.”
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”
“The moment I saw you, it all came rushing back.”
Then there was the look in his eye when
