Page 26 of Love In Translation

Though only God knew where she was going. Her apartment was currently occupied and Rheo, the queen of planning, didn’t have a plan B. Plan A was also proving hard to nail down.

Rheo sent Fletch a tight smile and pushed her chair back. They had two days left together, so what was the point of sharing anything when she was halfway out the door? “It’ll all work out. I’m not worried.”

Biggest.

Lie.

Ever.

She was terrified to the soles of her feet and was rapidly running out of options. Carrie’s arrival meant Rheo had one of two choices: coming clean or moving out. She wasn’t ready to explain, to eat humble pie—admitting to her family how she failed was worse than the failure itself—but she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

She could stay on Abi’s sofa for a few nights, but that wasn’t a long-term solution. Returning to Brooklyn wasn’t an option either—she’d have to rent another place for a month and her expenses would eat into her savings. Wherever she went, she’d have to pay to rent a place. And get a temporary job to cover her accommodation costs.

But where? How?

That was her problem, not Fletch’s. Rheo tossed her water bottle in the trash basket. She was on her own and running out of options. And Fletch was a complication, a distraction.

She gestured to her screen. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

Rheo waited for Fletch to close the door behind him before resting her forearms and head on the desk. Yes, she was frustrated and overwhelmed, but she wasn’t finished. That would only happen if she gave up and quit. She’d checked out for four months, but she was back in the game. Sort of.

But, crap, it was harder than she remembered.

Two days later, Fletch stood in the kitchen, idly making scrambled eggs and splitting his attention between his food and the view. After almost two weeks in the Pink House, he expected to feel scratchy and antsy, ready to move on, but he’d yet to feel restless or hemmed in. Yesterday, he’d spent the day hiking, and today he planned on hanging out in the hammock strung between the two huge western hemlock trees at the bottom of the garden. He’d found a book on David Livingstone’s exploration of the Zambezi in the library, and he was eager to dive into the world of the nineteenth-century explorer.

He’d been for a run and Fletch was, strangely, happy to do nothing. The only irritation was his low-hum attraction to Rheo, an itch that wouldn’t go away. He’d expected the attraction to have faded by now but, nope, it was still there, bigger and brighter than before. And he spent far too much time imagining them naked, together, in bed.

His phone pinged and he glanced down at the message on his screen.

Shit, Fletch, I’m sorry. Am still in Hanoi, I’ve picked up food poisoning. Obvs, I’m not going to make my flight and I need to get better quick because I have a meeting with a producer who wants to talk to me about a travel program for Netflix. I will probably not get there for another few weeks. Sorry to break your heart, but stay in the Pink House for as long as you want! You understand, right?

Fletch pushed his annoyance away. The stomach bug couldn’t be helped, and he wouldn’t pass up an excellent business opportunity to fly home for a holiday either. He’d delayed some of his Gilmartin adventures to share them with Carrie, and she wouldn’t be here for ages. But he wasn’t going to wait around for her. He would schedule the Little White Salmon run for just before he left, one day of hard exercise couldn’t hurt him, surely? He’d also find a climbing party keen for him to join them, and sign up for some hikes. Compared to his normal exercise regime, running, light climbing, and hiking were well within Seb’s orders. The residents of Gilmartin knew he was in town, and having some clout, adventure guides would fall over him to make his adventuring wishes come true. There were upsides to being semi-famous.

He liked this town, enjoyed the vibe, and felt at home in Paddy’s house in a way he’d never experienced before. Houses, hotel rooms, even his tiny house in Portland, reminded him of being confined as a teenager, and any room he spent too much time in soon started feeling like a prison.

Having spent a year confined to a bed, Fletch valued his freedom above all else and reveled in his pick-up-and-go lifestyle. His quest for freedom went deeper than physical movement. It was, in a weird way, symbolic of his recovery and triumph over CFS. And, yes, ridiculous or not, he was scared that staying in one place for too long might somehow push him back into confinement and illness. Being fit and constantly on the move was his way of reassuring himself he was healthy and free. He wasn’t wasting his second chance to live life fully.

He shook off his thoughts and pulled in a deep breath. The walls ofthishouse had yet to start closing in on him, so he was good for another week or two, maybe even three.

He didn’t need Carrie to enjoy the area, but how would Carrie’s news impact Rheo? She was leaving in a day or two, and he’d found himself dreading her departure. He had no idea why, especially since they hadn’t spent much time together.

He’d avoided her because of their hair-trigger attraction. He always scanned the horizon for trouble, and after that kiss they’d shared on his first day, he knew that if he and Rheo ended up in bed, and Carrie came back to Gilmartin, he’d have to juggle his time between the woman he was sleeping with and his adventure-loving friend.

Spending his nights with Rheo and his days with her cousin seemed sketchy, so he’d kept his distance. It hadn’t been easy.

And Rheo avoided him because... Who the hell knew?

But if Carrie wasn’t due back to Gilmartin for a few weeks, then there was no reason for Rheo to leave right away. Would she leave anyway? He had no idea. His stomach knotted.

Rheo affected his inner compass, made him feel like he was a few degrees off, less confident in his direction, and unsettled. He was a man who rarely second-guessed himself, but Rheo made him feel off-balance and curious. Normally, he’d be running for the hills, so he wasn’t sure why he was eager to keep that feeling that way, but he was.

Fletch tipped his eggs onto his toast. The kitchen door banged open. Rheo stood in the doorway and stepped out of her dirty flip-flops. Over the past week, he’d heard lots of cursing coming from her study—he presumed she still wasn’t as fluent as she needed to be. Some words he recognized, some he didn’t, since she flipped between languages.

When she had enough of whatever she was doing in there, she worked off her frustration by weeding her grandmother’s garden. He wasn’t much of a gardener, but he could tell a plant from a weed. Rheo, unfortunately, could not. And he wasn’t brave enough to tell her.

Rheo lifted her hair and twisted it into a messy bun on top of her head, securing it with a band she kept around her wrist.

She had a streak of dirt on her nose and grubby hands. She declined his offer to share his eggs.

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