As if they’d never been apart.
She only realised later, as she drifted off to sleep, that while she’d told Rafe she trusted him, trusted he’d never hurt her, he hadn’t said the same to her.
CHAPTER NINE
RAFE STOOD IN the small utilitarian kitchen on the ground level of The Barn.
A few cars still remained downstairs, but the workshop had been moved out, readying to turn it into whatever he decided to turn it into.
He scratched his bare chest with one hand, as he waited for the coffee machine to heat up. And he looked up, towards the loft.
Until a few weeks ago, he’d never even slept there, as Janie liked having him nearby when he was home. Now he wondered if he’d put it in out of some kind of wish fulfilment. If you build it, she will come. So to speak.
For there Sable slept now, face down, her hair splayed out over her pillow, and half onto his.
The fact that she took up three quarters of the bed and a long while to fully wake in the morning was new to him. They’d been close for years, and officially together for months before she’d skipped out, but it had been all about stealing time. They’d never spent the night together. Never woken to find the other still there.
And now they had... He’d miss it when she was gone. He’d miss her.
For that part of the plan hadn’t changed as far as he knew.
Once he’d kissed her, swung her into his arms and all but carried her over the threshold of the barn, they’d made few concrete agreements as to what happened after she fell pregnant. As if neither had wanted to jinx it. Or question the halcyon spell that had descended over them.
The coffee machine beeped. He slid two espresso glasses under the spouts, pressed a few buttons and the scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the air.
How normal this had become. The porthole window cracked open of a night, waking to birdsong. Him making two coffees and taking first shower. Her padding downstairs, late, to pack him a lunch to take to work. For he’d not strayed far since things had shifted between them, working at the original workshop most days. Managing remotely. Watching, with immense gratification, Janie take up the slack.
Rafe winced.
Truth was, he didn’t want her to leave. Not that he could tell her. She was her mother’s daughter after all. Skittish, unsettled. But the way things were going it felt...possible. As if they finally had their timing right.
He’d work up to it when the time was right. Tell her that he wanted strings. And always had.
Because he was that fully committed to this project: Project Baby.
As for that small voice in the back of his head that perked up every time they were apart, wondering if when he looked back she’d once again be gone? He did his best to ignore it.
Rafe rolled his shoulders.
She wasn’t going anywhere. She was in this, as much as he was. He could feel it. In her newfound calmness and in her easy smiles. As he listened in on the video chats she had with her agent, Nancy, who seemed like a cracker of a woman. Watched her talk through the test shots she’d taken on her phone, saving the film images taken on her old camera for when the new series she was working on was complete. In the way she looked at him when she thought he didn’t notice. In the way she looked at him when he did.
Rafe heard a creak and cocked his ear.
They were heading to Melbourne today—a final day trip before the Pumpkin Festival was due to take up a whole lot of time. He’d check in with the Melbourne operation, while she visited a photography specialist she’d made friends with, and they’d stop at their favourite Italian Place in Lygon Street for lunch before heading back.
He’d built the Melbourne spot, three times the size of the Radiance shop, from absolutely nothing. In a city in which no one judged him beyond the value in his work.
Sable had been the first person who’d ever looked at him as if he was worthy of a chance. Without her he might never have given voice to his ambitions. Or believed they might actually be achievable.
Not that long ago she’d said, “You know how it feels to be loved by me.”
It had been a throwaway line, but it had hit him like a Mack truck. Whipping away any last defences he’d held against her. For he’d known how it felt to be loved by her. It was a feeling he’d chased the rest of his life. The feeling of being seen, understood, heard, trusted.
Then she’d left.
“Come on, man. Enough already,” he said, gripping the counter. Closing his eyes and willing his lizard brain to shut the hell up.
For all that he was over the moon that she was back, the second-guessing was wearing at his edges. The looking over his shoulder.
From what he remembered of the time before his mother had left, his father had been exactly the same. Skittish, jumpy, waiting for it all to go wrong.
And it had.
How much was chicken, how much egg, he had no idea. He only knew it wasn’t healthy.
And he’d worked damned hard to make sure he didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. Any of them.
Including falling for a woman with itchy feet.
Rafe scrubbed a hand over his face, as if that might shake this internal conversation loose.
What happened, happened in the past. And he’d forgiven her. Otherwise how could he have asked her to stay? How could he possibly have considered starting a family with her if he wasn’t sure that she was stronger now? That she had changed?
He grabbed the coffees from the machine, dashed a little milk into his, and padded out of the kitchenette, making a beeline for the stairs to the loft.
The sooner he found her where he’d left her,
