CHAPTER NINETEEN
Andie stood in the upstairs kitchen, soaking in the sounds of the house. Her childhood home had always vibrated with noise and movement. The slamming of doors. The incessant clanging of steam through heating pipes. The shouts of squabbling girls. The bristling awareness of her parents’ moods, which she could gauge just by the pressure of their footfalls on the creaky wooden stairs. Rhys’s house was so expansive and well insulated that she often had to strain to tell where the other occupants were and what they were doing at any given moment, if she could tell at all. She knew Mrs. Hodge was downstairs with Will, getting his dinner started. Rhys was due home any minute.
Her chest tightened with anticipation. It was almost Pavlovian, the exhilaration that possessed her when she heard the tread of his footsteps in the corridor at night in the large house, or when he appeared beside her unheralded in the kitchen or the OT gym, offering to pitch in as she finished a task. Her rib cage would suddenly feel too small to contain the surge of emotion that overcame her. Her breath would turn fast and shallow at the merest suggestion of his touch. She felt mildly unhinged—in the nicest possible way, of course—her body alternately jolted with adrenaline and bathed in pleasurable endorphins.
She was now exactly halfway through her contracted time at the house. Just six more weeks and she’d be gone. This crazy flight of fancy would end, and she could go about putting her life back together. She wondered if her infatuation with Rhys would have loosened its grip by then, or if she’d have to suffer the full effects of withdrawal.
She was torn between the hope that she was growing as important to him as he was becoming to her, and the equally fervent wish that his feelings for her were far more tepid. How else would she be able to bear the inevitable guilt when she wrenched herself away—as she knew she must?
But there was nothing tepid about the way he touched her each night, or the way he looked at her when they lay basking in each other’s arms afterward, laughing and sharing stories about their day. The joy of it was enough to sweep her along in its inexorable current.
She craned to look out a window that overlooked the driveway, listening for the crunch of wheels on gravel, but was summoned instead by the chirping of her cell phone stuffed into the pocket of a jacket slung over a nearby chair.
“Jess!” she cried, fumbling as she picked up the call. So much had happened since she’d last seen and talked to her sister. “How are you feeling?”
“A bit pukey, but fine.” Jess’s cheerful voice sounded close enough that she could almost reach out and touch her. “Are you ready for Sunday?”
Sunday. The maple-sugaring event. Her mother had left a message several days ago, and Andie had texted back a response and then put it out of her mind, eager to slip back into escapist bliss with Rhys. But she couldn’t deny that her childhood had never been far from her thoughts in recent days, her memories awakened by her visits to Saddle Tree Farm, her dreams haunted by half-formed images that she didn’t know whether to attribute to recall or sheer imagination.
“Yeah, I told Susan I’d be there.”
“And what about Rhys and Will? Are they coming?”
“I haven’t asked them.”
“Why not?” Jess pressed. “This is your chance to show Susan how good you are at what you do. What better way than for her to see the trust Rhys has in you?”
“Susan is my problem, not Rhys’s. I don’t really think it’s going to help anyone to expose him to the Tilly craziness.” Or to enmesh Rhys even more deeply in her life than he already was.
“Well, then, let’s end the craziness,” Jess insisted. “The way she undermines you . . . it has to stop.”
Andie’s heart swelled painfully. Typical Jess, campaigning for her as tirelessly as ever. She loved her for it, but part of her wished her sister could let things be. There was one question that had been nagging at her, though.
“Jess, I need to ask you something.” Andie’s voice was small. “How did Dad used to act toward me when I was little? You know, before . . .” She didn’t have to say before what.
“Jim? How did he act toward you?” Jess sounded surprised. “You don’t remember?”
“Well, not really, no,” Andie admitted. “The accident was kind of like this dividing line. It’s hard for me to remember how things were before. Or, at least, I sometimes think I remember, and then I wonder whether I’m just making it up.”
“You were so young when it happened.” Jess sighed. “I know he was hard on you afterward, but before that, he worshipped the ground you walked on. You really don’t remember?”
“No. Tell me what he was like, Jess.”
“Well . . . he was different with you than he was with the rest of us. I don’t know. They were so young when Susan got pregnant with Louisa, and then Rose and I came along, and for him I think we were just more of the same. An obstacle to the life he’d planned.”
“You mean law school?”
“Yeah, that, and the idea of getting away from Camden for good. There he was, stuck with small kids, and he couldn’t shift onto another track. He was kind of locked into the same life as Pops.” Their grandfather had been a career cop in the Camden PD.
“So he took it out on Susan,” Andie commented, her tone bleak. One of her few persistent memories of her early life was of huddling on her bed with Jess, the air around them thick with rage, fear, and whiskey fumes as Jim bellowed at Susan in the bedroom next door. They would cringe, waiting for the splintering of wood or the sickening thud of a blow.
“You remember that,” Jess said softly. “Well, how could you not? It was awful. But then they’d make up, and she’d be walking on air and suddenly pregnant again, ready to pop out yet another kid they couldn’t afford.”
“He was a regular small-town Henry the Eighth, desperate to get his son.”
“Yeah, basically,” Jess snorted. “Louisa, Rose, and I were a sore disappointment to him. But with you, something changed. I don’t know if it was that he was finally coming around to the way his life had turned out, or if it was that you were just so darn gorgeous and funny and endearing—”
“Please!” Andie scoffed. That was most definitely not how she’d felt as a child.
“But you were, Andie.” Jess’s voice softened. “You were the cutest thing I’d ever seen. And you were such a tomboy. You were always up a tree or on a roof or on a horse. You drove Susan to distraction, but in Jim’s eyes you could do no wrong. You might not have been his boy, but you were the next best thing.”
Andie’s thoughts skipped back to the memory of being in the kitchen with Jim and Susan, held on his lap like a pawn smuggled behind enemy lines, safe under his protection while others suffered as the targets of his malevolence—Susan, most of all. She shuddered. It was a dynamic she’d never understood, of course. She’d been a young child. She’d never asked for Jim’s favoritism. But she’d needed affection from somewhere, as her mother always seemed to have precious little to give her.
Of course, everything changed after Gus’s death. Her father became a broken man. He had nothing left for her. No emotion left inside him at all. Just a vacuum that could never be filled, even by the amber-brown contents of a bottle. Andie’s heart churned with a strange melancholy, a sense of mourning for all of them. For Susan, for Jim, for their three eldest daughters, for Gus—always for Gus—and for herself as well, the once-vibrant child Jess had described.
“I feel sick,” she said.
“Like I’ve said before, you don’t have to come on Sunday.” Jess’s voice was rich with compassion.
“No, I do,” Andie said with renewed certainty. She was galvanized by the sense of a horizon coming into view as the first layers of long-sedimented assumptions were finally scrubbed from her lens. It was not a comfortable sensation, but now she knew things had to change. She couldn’t cling to her opaque understanding of the past and allow it to continue to shape her future. She needed to see Susan. She needed to go.
“Promise me you’ll think about bringing Rhys and Will. Show Susan how highly Rhys thinks of you. Think about how it would feel to finally turn up to this thing with reinforcements.”
“I’ll think about it.” It was all Jess could get out of her, and they eventually said their farewells, promising to see each other in a couple of days.
Andie leaned against the kitchen counter, her head in her hands. She racked her brain, trying to remember a time when she and Susan had not been set against one another—by Jim, by circumstances, by nature. There was one uncorrupted memory, but it felt so fleeting and tenuous she was afraid it would dissolve into tatters if she looked at it head-on. She saw the yard behind the farmhouse, its patchy grass overrun with clover, the white heads bobbing in the breeze. She and Susan were reclining on a picnic blanket, making daisy chains from the clover blossoms, the minute plastic cups and plates of Andie’s childhood tea set laid out before them. She remembered delicate little cucumber sandwiches cut into triangles without crusts, and dainty bite-size cupcakes.
Had Susan really made that miniature feast and packed it into a basket? Had the humorless woman she now knew really consented to pour orange juice from a child’s teapot and sip it from a tiny pink plastic teacup? It felt like a dream, but she knew it was real. She could taste the unfamiliar crunch of the cucumber and remember her delight when Susan had placed the circlet of flowers in her hair. Andie must have been around four years old, she realized. It was before Gus, and it must have happened while the three older girls were in school. The memory was so piquant that her eyes stung.
Could she bring Rhys and Will to Camden? It was hard enough for her to reconcile the two halves of her childhood—before the accident and after. Dragging her present into her past, superimposing the two by bringing Rhys and Will to the farm, might just be enough to tear a fatal hole in the fabric of her own personal space-time continuum.
Her relationship with Rhys was a secret thing, a guilty pleasure, budding within the climate-controlled bubble of the house. Other than their trips to Saddle Tree Farm, it hadn’t been tested in the outside world, exposed to public view. Was it something she dared to claim? And would it hold up if she bared it to the harshness of Susan’s scrutiny?
She took a deep breath, preparing herself to go downstairs.
“Oh, there you are, dear.” Mrs. Hodge appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Griffiths is home and was asking where you might have got to. He’s giving Will his dessert.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Hodge. I’ll go down now.”
“I wanted to say one thing, if I may.”
“Certainly.” Andie’s curiosity was piqued.
“Well, I feel I should caution you against making yourself too . . . convenient,” the woman said, all maternal concern. She even reached out to take one of Andie’s hands in hers and gave it a little squeeze.
“I . . . er,” Andie stammered, completely flummoxed.
“I would just hate to see you get hurt,” Mrs. Hodge finished, curling her fingers over Andie’s and holding her in place for an extra beat before she let go and allowed Andie to slip by her into the corridor beyond.
Convenient? Andie walked shakily toward the main staircase, hot waves of humiliation washing over her. But embarrassment turned to anger as she stopped at the head of the stairs. Is that what Mrs. Hodge thought? That Rhys was dallying with her simply because she was there, because she could tack on some free, personal services after her day with Will was done?
If Mrs. Hodge had been purely censorious, that would have been one thing. Far worse was the fact that she looked concerned, knowing, and faintly pitying of Andie’s assumed plight. Not unlike Susan, with her weighted sighs and her constant admonitions not to take on responsibilities that were supposedly beyond her depth. As if Andie were a perpetually hapless, naive child who could never quite measure up to the demands of the real world.
She stood rooted to the spot, her anger expanding with the gratifying rush of a gas flame igniting. I’ve had it. I’ve had enough. She was sick of the guilt. She was sick of always being the second-class citizen.
Her whole adult life, she’d done nothing but strive to be the most conscientious, responsible human being she could be. She’d graduated at the top of her class. She’d dedicated her career to helping children. She volunteered. She gave to charity. She recycled. Hell, she even felt vaguely guilty about hanging up on robocalls. Where relationships were concerned, she was careful to tailor her hopes and expectations to the modest limits she’d set for herself, always burdening her feelings with so many self-imposed footnotes and disclaimers that she was surprised she could even see for the fine print.
Nobody could be harder on her than she was on herself. The sheer audacity of her mother’s relentless second-guessing, her put-downs in the guise of concern—and Mrs. Hodge’s, for that matter, with her transparent attempt to hoist Andie by the petard of her own retrogressive sexual double standard—suddenly filled her with a combustible, righteous fury she’d seldom been privileged to enjoy.
To hell with being meek. To hell with always needing to do the right thing. She wanted to raze her mother’s quaint red barn to the ground. She wanted to wipe that troubled, earnest look off Mrs. Hodge’s face for good. She was even inclined to give herself a temporary pass on her feelings for Rhys and Will, for daring to want something from them—love, approbation, a sense of belonging—instead of always being the one who simply gave.
Convenient, huh? She was too incensed to join them downstairs and risk further exposure to the condescending look in Mrs. Hodge’s eye. She might do something she’d regret. Instead, she paced into her bathroom and impatiently cast off her clothes, craving the cooling jets of the shower. Set to bracing cold, the spray sluiced through her hair and drummed against her shoulders and back, but it couldn’t touch the indignation that simmered in her veins. The worst thing was that, from a purely objective standpoint, the nanny’s scruples made sense. From the outside, Andie was just the latest player in an age-old tragicomedy: the employee who falls into a physical relationship with her employer. Her actions looked every bit as tacky and reckless—not to mention unoriginal—as Mrs. Hodge had implied.
What that equation didn’t account for, however, was Rhys himself. Rhys, who never seemed to do anything that wasn’t passionate, honest, and well meant. Rhys, who never stopped insisting on elevating their bond to transcendence, even as she tried to reduce it to the merely physical.
Convenient? How wrong Mrs. Hodge was, and how thick the irony. As Andie stood beneath the shower jets, anger and frustration twined with the bottomless, insatiable longing that was always her first response to Rhys. It wasn’t fair. Why wouldn’t he simply allow her to be convenient? She felt a wild urge to punish him for his genuineness, his kindness, his goodness. How dare he make me feel this way? How dare he make me want more than I ever presumed to ask for?
She stood under the force of the spray for untold minutes, lost in the turmoil of her thoughts, stoking her fury by replaying in her mind the solicitous touch of Mrs. Hodge’s hands on her own. Finally, she toweled herself off with rough strokes and, still brooding, went to find Rhys.
“Andie!” Relief and puzzlement dawned on his face when she discovered him in the kitchen. Will had been already settled in bed, and the house was dark around them. “I was wondering where you were. I asked Mrs. Hodge—”
“I know,” she said, letting her hands drop to her sides so the plush, white, unbelted bathrobe she wore fell open to reveal the inner curves of her breasts, an expanse of smooth, pale midriff, and the provocative dark triangle at the juncture of her thighs. Her core was molten with desire, the force of her yearning almost painful as she studied him: the furrow between his blue-heather eyes, the sensuous lines of his mouth, and the telltale ridge already pushing at the front of his jeans in immediate response to her. According to Mrs. Hodge, Andie might be powerless, but at least there was a transitory power in this—the power to put that sharp hitch in Rhys’s breath, to make his pulse pound hot and fast with the same need that consumed her.
“What . . . ?” His question was choked off as she slid to her knees in front of him, shrugging the robe into a heap on the floor. Her deft fingers permitted no argument as she unfastened his belt and made short work of the buttons on his fly, giving a primitive grunt of satisfaction as she reached through the gap in his boxer shorts, and his turgid length sprang into her hands. I’ll show you convenient. She licked her lips, gratified by his white-knuckled grip on the edge of the granite as he leaned back against the counter.
He was musky and silky, and as hot as if his blood were spring fed from some volcanic source. A small moan escaped her as she went to her hands and knees and fitted her lips around him, slipping over the smooth head to tease him with an elaborate delicacy before taking him deeper in rhythmic, demanding pulls. She could feel the wetness pooling at the entrance to her body as her flesh swelled and ached to have him inside, tormented by the stimulation she was performing with her mouth.
As if sensing her desperation, he stretched forward, running a shaky hand along the arc of her spine, over her buttocks, and dipping lower to find the slickness that awaited him. His groan as his fingertips found her was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard. She shuddered, craving the thrilling invasion of his fingers but knowing that if she allowed him access, she’d be undone. This was about him, not her. A dark, subversive part of her wanted him to use her, just as their uneven power dynamic suggested she’d been used all along. So she shifted out of reach with an impatient growl, her tongue painting relentless, teasing trails down the glistening wet length of him, before her lips resumed their suction.
“Andie, God . . .” Rhys’s voice splintered as he braced himself with both hands once more, his hips bucking as he drove into the welcoming vortex of her mouth. Her hands roamed over the bunched muscles of his thighs, rock hard beneath the denim, only his cock exposed in quick flashes as her lips pumped, while she was fully bared to him and to the coolness of the night.
See? This is what convenience looks like, she thought with a grim sense of vindication. It’s really not so bad, is it? Her anger stoked her desire ever higher as she goaded him to take his pleasure from her body and prove, once and for all, that their connection was but a fleeting thing, and not the soul-deep bond she feared it was.
Triumph flared and made her throat thicken with a paradoxical disappointment as he cried out, seemingly on the verge of release. But he pulled clear of her insistent mouth, hauling her to her feet. Was he going to bend her over the countertop and expend himself in a final, urgent flurry of thrusts? Her eyes flashed in challenge as he drew her face-to-face with him. Go on. Finish this.
His resolute gaze met hers, and, to her immense surprise, he smoothed the still-damp strands of hair from her brow and planted a gentle kiss there before lifting her onto the edge of the countertop. Frustration boiled beneath her skin as she lured him in for a devouring, openly erotic kiss, nipping at his bottom lip as he pulled away. She parted her thighs, aching to draw him in, but he pushed her firmly back to lie on the polished granite.
Protesting, she braced against him, trying to struggle upright. “But I wanted to—” she began.
“I know, and now I want to,” he said simply. His hands were firm bronze bands around her wrists, holding her arms by her sides as if he instinctively understood she needed something to push against. And push she did, the tension in her muscles met by the resisting force of his in an unspoken battle of wills as he anointed her belly and hips with lingering kisses. The coldness of the smooth stone beneath her was reminiscent of the rush of the shower, but equally incapable of soothing the fever of her flesh. She squirmed in torment, both loving and hating the control he exerted over her as his mouth zeroed in on its target.
When his tongue brushed over the exquisitely sensitive bundle of nerves at the peak of her cleft, she jolted in shock, straining against her confinement. Oh, the terrible, melting pleasure of it—the cool whisper of his breath and the heat of his tongue, lapping and teasing in an intimate caress she’d never accepted from anyone.
“Wait.” Her plea escaped on a fluttering exhalation. This was all wrong. She’d wanted to be used, not worshipped. But there was reverence in his hooded gaze as he watched her, and in the absorbed sweep of his lips and tongue. With a sigh that blended surrender, protest, and a deep, hidden joy, Andie made herself relax against the bonds of Rhys’s hands, implicitly signaling him to continue.
It wasn’t long before the tension mounted within her again, but he held her firm, anchoring her body so her senses could escape in a flight of pleasure she’d never before imagined. Her fingers clenched as she scaled the blinding peak of sensation, shuddering beneath the voracious tribute he paid with his beautiful mouth, a thorough homage that was anything but cursory or convenient. She was almost delirious when he finally released her, and it was then that he turned her over the now-warmed counter’s edge, covering her body with his after hastily stepping out of his jeans and sheathing himself.
His fingers wove through hers as he entered her with one slow, deep thrust that completed the job of turning her legs to jelly. His cheek pressed against hers as he moved with her, fused as one, and she was dimly aware that the fear and fury that had consumed her when she’d come to him had dissolved into nothingness. She trusted him—even more, perhaps, than she trusted herself. Soaring, she let him take her over the edge once more, propelled by the escalating rhythm of his sure, urgent strokes.
And by the time they were spent, and had gathered the strength to creep—damp and smiling—up the staircase to the big, cool bed, Andie had come to a decision. She was going to invite Rhys and Will to her mother’s farm. She was going to show up there with someone in her corner, at long last. She was going to demand her mother’s absolution. And if she didn’t get it, she was going to forge her own path, once and for all.