Reid stared at the document he’d printed out, the words blurring. Printing things out always made it easier to read them than when they were on the computer screen, but it wasn’t working this time and now he had two piles of pages to go through—emails and contracts and invoices and offers—which made it all seem worse somehow. He wiped his hand across tired eyes.
Hell. Why was this so hard? Luke used to do all this shit with his eyes closed—well, that was how he made it seem. He’d always been so good at school when he’d turned up, where Reid had always found it so difficult to concentrate, to sit still. Ants in his pants syndrome, that’s what Gran had called it, but now he’d probably be diagnosed with ADHD. Not that he wanted a diagnosis. He knew what he could and couldn’t do. Physical activity helped, so that had become his thing, the thing he was good at. Luke had always told him that it wasn’t the only thing he could be good at, that he could do anything he put his mind to. Luke had always been into all that holistic ‘you can change it if you believe it’ stuff. Neuroplasticity, he’d called it.
Reid had almost come around to believing it, him, but then the prick had gone and drugged up before a climb and killed himself and dropped all of this in Reid’s incapable hands. He raked said hands through his hair. ‘I can’t do this shit!’ He shoved the papers in front of him so hard they spilled off the desk, fluttering like a mass migration of one-winged birds across the polished wood floor. ‘Ah crap.’
‘Reid? I was wondering if I could have a shower before we go …’ Reid’s head snapped up to see Nat in the doorway, her gaze going to the mess on the floor. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Fine.’ He jumped up from his chair but hadn’t pushed it back far enough. His leg banged the desk. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said, rubbing the sharp pain.
She raised her brow at him. ‘I can’t remember you being such a klutz. Or having a temper.’
‘I’m not. A klutz. And everyone has a temper sometimes.’
‘And now you have a mess.’ She bent to start sweeping up the pages nearest her.
‘One you don’t have to clean up.’
She met his eyes. ‘I want to. You helped with my mess last night.’
‘That was hardly your mess.’
‘Still.’ She kept picking up the pages scattered on the floor. ‘I want to help.’
‘Thank you.’
The silence was almost companionable as they tidied up, the shuffle and crinkle of paper a friendly sound filling the space between them, his frustration fading away. He glanced up at her a few times, wondering if she would mention anything about last night. But she was too focused on the task at hand and showed in no other way that she even remembered having the nightmare and asking him to hold her then sleeping in his arms. It was all he could think of now she was here.
She finished clearing the papers that had fallen to the left of the desk and began to stack them, her gaze running over the top page as she did so. Her hands faltered. ‘Are you closing up your production company?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe. It’s an option.’
Her eyes lifted to meet his then fell back to the page in her hand. He held his breath, hand hovering as if to snatch the page from her, an odd ache in his chest as he waited.
Then her eyes met his again. ‘Why?’
He sucked in a breath, wasn’t going to answer. ‘I can’t climb. I can’t do any of it anymore. Not without Luke. Not after what happened.’ He dragged his gaze away, not wanting her to see just how broken he was, but he couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth. ‘I see him, just before he fell, over and over. When his line snapped, he managed to hold on for a few seconds and he looked up at me, the knowledge of what was about to happen in his eyes. I tried to reach him, to grab him, but I couldn’t get a good enough hold. His fingers slipped from mine and he was gone, his eyes on mine as he fell. That’s what I see every time I try to climb. That’s what I remember every night in my dreams.’ Except for last night. He hadn’t had the nightmare last night. Huh.
‘Oh, Reid.’ She grasped his hand, held it against her chest so that he could feel the heat of her through her soft t-shirt, the thump of her heart. ‘I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but you shouldn’t give up on your dreams.’
He frowned. ‘I don’t know if they are my dreams anymore.’
‘Then you need to make new ones.’ She reached out, touched his face, and something jerked open inside him and he found himself staring dumbly at her, like a startled deer in headlights.
‘I want to,’ he whispered. ‘But I don’t know how.’
‘Can I help?’
‘Yes. You can.’
He didn’t mean to say that; he’d spent much of last night—and then again this morning—telling himself he couldn’t, he shouldn’t. Apart from the fact he should give her time to get over the attack, he knew he wasn’t right for her. But the way she was looking at him, the way she touched his face, the way she leaned towards him, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her to him and covering her lips with his.
Holy crap. Kissing her was an addiction. It rushed over him, through him, burning thought before it, leaving tingling sensation in its wake. Someone groaned, maybe both of them? She tasted of honey and berries and summer and he wanted more. She pressed tightly against him and he wrapped her in his arms, closer, until they were intertwined, his hand in her hair.
‘Reid.’
‘Nat.’
Words gasped between kisses.
‘We shouldn’t do this. We’re not good together. We agreed.’
‘Maybe this is what we need.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ They’d both said it at the same time.
They were looking at each other intently now. ‘This is insane,’ she said, and then her lips were back on his.
He knew she was right, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Breathless, needing Nat more than air, he kept kissing her, unable to think, to care about anything but her lips under his.
The shrill sound of a phone alarm going off pushed them apart; they stared at each other, breathing hard.
‘What is the alarm for?’ she asked as he rose to turn his phone off.
‘I set it to get you up so you had time to have a shower and change before I took you to the hospital.’
‘Ahh.’ She swallowed hard. ‘That was thoughtful.’
‘Yeah.’
He smiled, she smiled back and it was like the sun had come out for a second time that morning. He was staring at her again. She was staring back, hadn’t run away, had kissed him back. Did that mean something? Anything? Maybe it just meant that she felt sorry for him. It hadn’t felt like a pity kiss though. No, it had felt like something much better than that. But now wasn’t the time to go into it. Besides, he’d prefer not to talk about what had led into the kiss this morning. Or any time soon for that matter. It would give too much away. He cleared his throat and reached out a hand to help her to her feet. ‘We need to get going soon. It’s half past seven.’
She held onto his hand. ‘I need to get some clothes from my place. These aren’t exactly hospital-going clothes,’ she said, gesturing down at the flowing yoga pants and soft green t-shirt she’d slept in. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a shower and getting this bandage off my head too.’
‘Your place should be cleaned up by now. I’ll take you there so you can shower and change.’
‘I don’t have any shoes.’
‘You can borrow my thongs. They’re a bit big, but they’ll do for the walk to your cottage.’
Holding hands, they went out the door and wandered down the path. She breathed in deeply. ‘So beautiful.’
‘Yes.’ He wasn’t looking at the scenery. She glanced up at him, blushed and looked away.
‘I called up to the main house to check on Tilly before I came downstairs. She’s had a great night with the kids who arrived yesterday and was showing no signs of missing me at all. Barb said she’d told Tilly I was busy with work but was also staying away so she wasn’t embarrassed by having her mum around when meeting her new friends.’
Reid snorted. ‘That sounds like Barb.’
Nat nodded fondly. ‘Thank god for her though, because apparently Tilly swallowed it hook, line and sinker.’
‘Barb knows what she’s doing.’
‘Yes, she does.’
Nat’s footsteps slowed. ‘Reid?’
‘Yes?’
‘You know I’m here for you? That you can talk to me about anything. Including your business worries.’
She knew. Of course she knew. She’d known of his troubles with school back then and she was so smart, she would have easily put two and two together. But he still didn’t want to talk about it, so he simply nodded.
‘I want to help like you helped me last night.’
‘You did. You listened and you held me and it helped.’
‘You still had a nightmare.’
‘Not after you came to bed and held me. I didn’t have any nightmares then.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘See? It helped both of us.’
‘Did it?’
She reached up, touched his face. ‘There are no nightmares in your eyes this morning.’
‘No. I only see you. Only you.’
His lips were on hers again, or had hers met his, but this time, rather than raw passion, the kiss was gentle, a sip rather than the gulping of before.
‘Do we really have to go to the hospital? There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with me.’ She gasped as he kissed down her throat.
‘No, there doesn’t. But safe side,’ he muttered against her collarbone, her neck, before making his slow way back up to her mouth, filling himself with the flavour of her before he reluctantly pulled away. ‘Go in. Shower and change. I’ll wait here.’
‘You’re not coming inside?’
He shifted uncomfortably in his jeans. ‘Best not if we want to get you to the hospital on time.’
‘If you’re sure.’
Shit, why did she have to look so disappointed? He almost gave in but reminded himself in time to be good. He might not think he was worthy of her, but she didn’t seem to think the same. Although, she could still be in shock. ‘We have time,’ he said.
A frown flickered on her face before her smile took over again. ‘Okay.’ And then she was gone, the door clicking closed behind her, and he turned to look out at the day, the sun seeming to shine brighter than before over the valley, the grass greener, the air clearer. Today was going to be a good day.