Page 37 of Twice in a Lifetime

His chuckle filled the otherwise quiet kitchen. “You know the rules, Blythe. You do the cookin’, I do the cleanin’. It’s only fair.”

I barely heard a word that passed his lips afteryou know, because he’d chosen that moment to turn and face me in all his shirtless glory. First I’d been mesmerized by the way his biceps curled and his forearms bulged as he dried a water glass with a hand towel. Then my eyes snagged on the rows of ab muscles that lined his taut stomach. But as my gaze trailed up to his chest, everything in me froze, from the blood in my veins to the air in my lungs. Because right there, in the very center of his defined pec, above his heart, was a tattoo.

A pair of wings. Angel wings, to be exact.

My heart began to race as a burn built in my lungs, forcing me to let out the breath I’d been holding and suck in another one.

“Blythe?”

I blinked, dragging my attention to his face. “Sorry, what?”

One corner of his mouth was hooked up in a smirk. “You okay? You spaced out there for a few seconds.” His expression and tone dripped with cockiness that had me rolling my eyes.

I pushed the meaning of the tattoo to the back of my mind. At least for now. I unstuck my feet from the floor and rounded the island to grab the wine bottle. “I’m fine, just came in for a glass of wine,” I said as I poured.

Rhodes placed the sparkling clean glass in its cabinet and hung the dish towel over the handle of the oven door before turning to me, bracing his palms behind him on the counter and making the muscles in his chest pop.

“I was about to pour myself a whiskey and sit out on the back porch if you feel like joinin’ me. The view of the stars from there is unrivaled. Only place better is the lookout.”

That had always been one of my favorite things about Rhodes’s and my secret spot. The view during the day was breathtaking, but at night, it felt like you were lying beneath a literal blanket of stars.

“Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”

He brightened at that. Pushing off the counter and circling the island, he said, “All right then. I’ll grab a shirt and meet you out there.”

I moved to the hall closet for a light cardigan to pull on over my PJs. The nights were crisp in the mountains, and there wasn’t much material to the satin shorts and camisole set I’d changed into before tucking the kids in.

With my wine in hand, I opened the sliding glass door to the back porch and stepped onto the chilled wood planks. The only place to sit was on the massive swing bolted into the roof of the porch, so I took a seat on the far end, curling my legs beneath me and pressing against the pillows propped against the arm and back. Sure enough, millions of stars blinked up in the dark sky, and I tipped my head back, taking them in as a breeze danced over me, blowing my hair across my shoulders and sending goosebumps across my skin.

The door slid open again a few minutes later, and Rhodes stepped out, feet still bare, gray sweats still on, only now he’d added a black cotton shirt that molded to him like a second skin. One side of my brain mourned the loss of all that naked flesh, but the other side of my brain was grateful, because that tattoowas currently living rent-free in my head, and I didn’t think I had the bandwidth to get into the meaning of it just then.

Rhodes sat against the other arm, mindful to keep space between us, and kicked off with his foot, sending us back and forth in a slow, calming rock.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the peace that came with being this far away from other people. The sounds of the forest were our playlist, the call of the night birds, the chirp of the crickets, the rustling of the trees as the wind slid through their branches.

“Kids get to bed okay?” he asked once I’d drunk half my glass.

That was a question he’d asked every night since we moved in, and I could tell by his expression that it wasn’t a filler question. He really wanted to know. It mattered to him that my kids were comfortable and sleeping well. I could see that in his unwavering patience whenever Avett peppered him with a million eager questions, or how he didn’t bat an eye when Ainsley demanded he have a tea party with her. It was in how he sat silently with Adeline while she read, reading a book of his own in complete silence while still providing her company. It was especially evident in the way he didn’t seem to care that my girls were determined to make Koda into the fluffiest, biggest purse dog in existence, complete with bows and sparkly jewels.

I closed my eyes and rested my head against the back of the swing, letting the cool air caress my skin. “They did. Avett had a little crisis of conscience, but I think he’s okay now.”

The swinging stopped abruptly, forcing my eyes open and my gaze to his. From the faint light glowing through the window from inside, I could see that his features had grown serious. “Is he okay? Is there anything I can do?”

I let out a breath and took another sip of wine. “He’s good now. He was worried what it meant that he wasn’t as sad about his father passing as he had been when it was still fresh.”

“Christ,” he grunted. “Poor kid.”

“I explained it was all a part of healing. That we aren’t meant to stay sad forever. They’ve handled this loss with so much grace it’s easy to forget how young they are sometimes.”

“They’ve handled it so well because they have an incredible mom to guide them through.”

My chest tightened and my eyes burned, but I managed to battle back the emotion, twisting my neck around to give him an appreciative smile. “Thank you for saying that,” I said in a hushed voice. “I think I needed to hear it. Truth is, I’ve been questioning the job I’ve been doing lately.”

He set us to swinging again. “You shouldn’t. From everything I’ve seen, you’re nailing it.”

I let out a self-deprecating scoff as I looked out to the trees. “I wouldn’t say I’ve been nailing it. More like muddling my way through. I got too wrapped up in my grief when Elliott died. Then all his secrets started coming to light just as I’d finally gotten my head above water. I let that consume me for too long, and I worried they had suffered for it.”

His fingers caressed beneath my chin, turning my face and tilting it back so I met his eyes. Fire licked deliciously at my skin where he touched, and it took everything I had not to scoot closer to him on the bench.

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