Page 38 of Twice in a Lifetime

“Hey, don’t do that,” he ordered in a tone that was somehow gentle and firm at the same time. “Don’t downplay what you went through. Being a mother doesn’t mean you don’t get to grieve just because you have other people to be responsible for. You lost too, and you lost more. It wasn’t just about him dying, you also had to deal with him not being who you thought he was. You’re allowed to feel that too.”

My breathing picked up and my heart began to race as his eyes held me captive. His words burrowed through my skin andinto my chest, filling some of the places that had felt hollow for so long now.

“Thank you,” I whispered, those two words laced with everything I was feeling.

Silence wrapped around us, creating a bubble only we were allowed in. The apple in his throat moved on a thick swallow, causing my mouth to go dry. My tongue peeked out to slide across my bottom lip, drawing his gaze to my mouth.

For a second I could have sworn he was going to kiss me, and I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do if he did. But then his hand fell away and he scooted back across the bench.

The bubble had been popped, and it took a moment for me to catch my breath from what had happened.

I cleared my throat, taking another swallow of wine and returning to my study of the shadows the trees cast in the moonlight.

“So,” I started once my heartrate finally returned to normal, then asked the first question to pop into my head. “How come you never settled down and had kids of your own?”

He brought his glass to his lips, drinking back a healthy swallow of the rich, amber liquid inside. I couldn’t help but notice the way his fingers clutched the glass so tight his knuckles had turned bone white.

His jaw was tense and I could see the flutter of the pulse in his neck as I studied his profile. “Just wasn’t in the cards for me, I guess.”

I bit down on my bottom lip, unable to shake the sense there was more that he wasn’t saying. “That’s a shame. You’re really great with my little band-of-chaos monsters.”

He cast a quick grin in my direction before looking back out at the night. “Yeah, well, your kids are pretty damn incredible. It would be impossible not to like them.”

My belly fluttered and my heart did a little flip.

“There was never anyone serious?” I didn’t know why the hell I was pushing all of a sudden. I couldn’t seem to help myself. “What about that woman from the grocery store? Looked like you guys might have had something at one time.” A nasty, oily sensation coated my skin as I thought back to how she’d looked at him. I’d never considered myself a jealous person, but there was no other explanation for the way I was feeling.

“Grace?” His brows furrowed as he twisted in my direction and let out a little laugh. “No. We dated for a few months, but we were never that. It wasn’t serious.”

I thought back to the way her face lit up when she saw him, then to how she reacted when I introduced myself. “Did she know it wasn’t that serious?”

Rhodes heaved out a sigh and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he scrubbed at his jaw with his free hand. “I thought so. I was never anything but honest with her, but apparently, she had it in the back of her head that she could change my mind.”

My mouth pulled into a wince. For Graceandfor Rhodes. That couldn’t have been a pleasant situation for either of them. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “me too. She is a good woman. I just couldn’t make it work.”

I tried to tamp down my next question, but the words spilled out before I could swallow them down. “Why was that?”

His gaze collided with mine, no traces of humor in his eyes. “You know why, Blythe,” he rumbled, his voice like gravel wrapped in silk.

My eyes widened and my lips parted on a gasp. The goosebumps that spread across my body had nothing to do with the temperature. “No, I?—”

“Don’t play that game. It’s one thing if you don’t feel it yourself, but don’t pretend you don’t know the truth. You saw the tattoo, for Christ’s sake.”

I couldn’t catch my breath all of a sudden. The sound of his voice was all I could hear over the rush of blood in my ears. “Rhodes,” I whispered, my fingers tensing with the need to reach out and touch him. But I held myself back.

“I never wanted to make it work with anyone else because they weren’t you, Angel. It was you or no one. You married Elliott and had those incredible kids upstairs, so I chose no one.”

I didn’t know how the hell it was possible, but hearing him say that somehow broke my heart and stitched pieces of it back together at the same time. I shouldn’t have liked hearing he was alone because he never stopped wanting me, but I did.

He lifted his glass and knocked back the rest of the whiskey before standing from the swing. “I never regretted that decision, Blythe. Not for a single fuckin’ minute, because I never stopped hoping that one day, you’d come back to me.”

With that, he leaned down and hooked his hand behind my neck. My head tipped back and he pressed his full lips into the very corner of my mouth. “Sleep good, Angel,” he said quietly, then he walked back into the house, leaving me reeling.

Chapter Twenty

Blythe

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