"Are you going to find out what flavour bun you're making in here? If I'm going to have a niece or a nephew?"
"Not until it's born," Ivy said, rubbing a hand over her stomach. "Until then, it's just Bump. Baby Castlereagh seemed like too much of a mouthful."
"Birth being, I presume, the point where you'll stop Jared from having any contact with the bub," Rex said, trying not to choke up. "Can you imagine if he had any hand in raising a child?"
"Yeah," Ivy said, clearly biting back tears of her own, "I can." And then she lost the fight and threw herself into Rex's arms to sob. "I'm sorry," she cried as the others looked over in concern. "It's the hormones. I cried at a commercial for margarine yesterday."
The strength of her sudden feeling made his chest feel like it might burst open, so Rex handed Ivy back to Jared, quietly took himself outside, and sat on the porch until he could breathe around the ache. Alannah, he thought. The only person I want to share this news with is Alannah.
Gina appeared eventually, plopping down beside him on the step without finesse. "You okay, hon?"
"Yep," Rex said and promptly belied it when he heaved in a breath that felt like it was full of razor blades.
"Is this about Allie Green leaving?"
"What do I do?" he found himself asking. "She's leaving me. What do I do?"
"She's not leaving you," Gina said. "She's just leaving. She was leaving before you got here, and she's stayed on that path all this time."
"I don't want her on this path. I want her with me, Mum. What if she never comes back?"
"Didn't you give her something to come back to?"
Rex considered the question. "I never told her that I'm in love with her," he said eventually. "She cut me off every time I tried."
"Perhaps you should."
"But if I do now, won't it just sound like a last-ditch attempt to make her stay?"
"Only if you don't make sure she knows you mean it," Gina said. "Only if you do it wrong."
Chapter 13
Jared and Ivy went to bed as soon as the rest of the family had left, but Rex found himself sitting at the kitchen bench, nursing a glass of milk that he hoped would put him to sleep. It didn't. So, his day was already off to a brilliant start when, after approximately three hours of sleep, he arrived onsite to find Jamie was sick and he'd be working alone today. Not that they spoke much as they worked alongside one another, but Rex was surprised to realise that the older man's stoic silence, broken only by instructions and the rare sparse conversational gambit, had become part of his routine. He felt the lack of Jamie's presence through the day, though he would have insisted he didn't need supervision in his work anyway.
It was fortunate, then, that the work wasn't technically complex. Still, it took up enough of Rex's brain that he managed to shove Alannah to the back of it for all of six seconds at a time. He was focusing hard enough on not thinking about her that, when a pair of boots entered his peripheral vision, he didn't notice them for several seconds.
When he looked up, he immediately regretted doing so. Harry Mitchell stood over him, and he was wearing steel-cap boots, and Rex was suddenly sure he was going to have his teeth kicked in. He lurched to his feet, flicked his ear protection off, and bent his knees slightly so he could dodge if the other man took a swing.
Harry made no attempt to hit him. His face was tight, and he looked ever so slightly ashamed when he spoke without inflection. "Cameron's out today. He asked Dad to send someone over to help you with the kitchen."
"Jamie was going to leave it until the sparky's been."
"Changed his mind, I guess."
The two of them stood in silence for several beats until Rex shrugged. "You're the boss."
Whatever his faults, Harry was a good worker. He emulated Jamie's habitual silence as they worked alongside each other, broken only by grunted instructions. Rex wanted to resent the man for his superior skill as well as his past actions, but he couldn't find it in himself. All his emotional energy went toward missing Alannah. He didn't have any left to hold a grudge.
That didn't mean he didn't keep a close eye on what Harry was doing with those power tools, though.
They now had more in common than they didn't, Rex reflected. Both from Shepherd's Creek, both youngest sons, and now both left by Alannah Green. He wanted to vomit. Harry had had his sassy girl, called her his own, put a ring on her finger. And still, he had made her feel dirty, made her feel trapped into a mould she was never made to fit. Al Green, living without ever having extended herself outside the limits of their town? She never would have been happy. But Harry either hadn't looked closely enough to realise that about the woman he called his own, or he didn't care and would have corralled her into it anyway. Rex wasn't sure which option made him angrier. That any man would push his Alannah to keep herself small when she was designed for so much more made his stomach clench.
In a flash of comprehension, Rex realised suddenly what was wrong. He was wrong. He had been wrong about everything, about himself and his motivations and, God, even about what he felt for Alannah. He loved her; of course, he knew he loved her, but how much of the way he treated her had been about his own need to feel grounded? To feel vital to someone? His desperate drive to keep her in place, the frantic desire to stop her leaving, leaving him—it hadn't just been about loving her. Like the recurring dream that had been with him since his first deployment, he'd been staring at his empty hands as he tried to grasp something he couldn't hold, not just from fear that he would lose whatever it was, but that he would never have anything worth holding on to.
How much, he had to ask himself, had his desperation to keep her in place since he heard that she was leaving been so that he could feel like he had meant enough to her to keep her in town?
He couldn't make the same mistakes that Harry had. He couldn't try to keep her in his own version of the cage the other man had designed, couldn't force her to fit into the mould that he'd unknowingly designed for her. If he wanted to be a better man than the one who had come before him—if he wanted to prove to her that he was a better man, a man worth loving—he had to let her be herself, be the woman she had been trying so hard to be, the woman relaxed enough around him to be sassy and sarcastic, to be wild and free and brave. The woman who left her comfort zone behind to find something more, to live the kind of adventure that he had already experienced. He had to give her that chance, not hold her back because of his own misgivings. He had to let her leave. If he loved her, he had to let her go.
And if what he felt for her—what she felt for him—was enough, she would come back.
His head lolled forward as he realised the painful truth of the old cliché. He almost wanted to laugh, only the sick feeling was roiling in his belly once more, and he wasn't sure if opening his mouth would be a good idea. He heard his name, and from the tone of Harry's voice, it wasn't the first time he'd said it.
"You all right?" The other man gestured to Rex's hands, which were clutching his idle tools in a white-knuckled grip.
"What? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I'm good." He heard himself rambling and commanded his whirling brain to stop it. "I have to go."
"What?"
"It's an emergency," Rex said. "I don't have time to explain."
Harry stared at him for a long moment. "Fuck," he said eventually. "It's Alannah, isn't it?"
His words stopped Rex cold.
"I have to go," Rex repeated, not wanting to explain that he was running to the man's ex-fiancée to tell her he was going to be a better man for her. "I'll explain it to Mitch, I swear." Without care for his tools, he sprinted out of the building to his car. His hands were shaking as he jammed the key into the ignition, twisted it once, then again.
The car didn't start.
Of all the times for his old bomb to give up the ghost, this would have to be the worst. Rex dropped his forehead to hit it against the steering wheel once, twice. He tried the key again. Still nothing. "Shit. Shitshitshitshit—"
He brok
e off. There was another car onsite.
With dread in his stomach, he flung the door open and ran back inside.
Harry could hardly have looked more surprised to see him return. "What?"
"Mate," Rex said and halted. He needed to get this right, and the only way to do that would be to find a way to ignore his frantic need to get to Alannah. He heaved in a breath. "I need to ask you something, and I need you to listen. I know you don't like me. I know you're still reeling from Alannah. But I'm in love with her, and I know that's shitty to hear, and I'm sorry. But it's true—I'm so in love with her it hurts. And she's about to leave. I need her to know before she goes, not because I'm trying to make her stay, but because I left without a word, and I can't stand her not knowing. I want her to know that no matter how we ended, I wouldn't change a thing. Because I got the chance to fall in love with her. And she should know that she's worth loving."
There was a long pause as the two men stared at each other, and Rex watched something pass over the other man's face as it went pale. Harry swallowed, his throat working as his fists opened and closed.
"Doesn't she know that?" he said eventually. His voice was hoarse, and he was breathing hard. "Didn't I show her that she's worth loving? I told her I loved her for years and years."
"I didn't tell her," Rex said, and he heard the plea in his own voice. "She heard it from you, but she never did from me."
"She's not yours," Harry said, almost yelling.
"She's not anyone's," Rex shouted back. With effort, he reined himself in. He couldn't afford to alienate the man any further, not now. "But I love her, mate. I don't need your blessing for that."
"Then what do you want? She's not mine anymore. I can't give her up to you." There was a strange sort of plea in Harry's voice.
Rex heaved in a breath, trying to block the feeling that he was desperately short of oxygen. "I need your car. Mine won't start. She didn't even tell me what day she was leaving." An idea occurred to him and stole his breath all over again. "It could be now. She could be driving away right now."
Harry's eyes held Rex's for a long, loaded moment. It felt like the world held its breath. There was something happening inside the other man, Rex could see his face twitching in turmoil. His jaw worked as he ground his teeth together. The muscles in his neck stood out, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
After an eternity had passed, his shoulders dropped like he'd taken a blow. He dug in one pocket of his shorts and threw Rex a set of keys, not meeting his eyes.
Rex didn't hesitate for a moment. He ran. When he spared a glance back through the open door, he saw Harry bracing himself with his arms on the bench. He looked like an old man, holding himself together by sheer force of will. Rex knew the feeling—had felt it himself over losing the same woman. The pain of the reminder made him turn away. He realised that part of him was in denial that he was about to feel the exact same thing. He was about to tell Alannah that he loved her and let her leave, taking the contents of his chest with her. This was, he realised, a more personal, perhaps even more important sacrifice than he'd ever made in fighting for his country. He was giving her all the pieces of himself, knowing that they would not be enough to make her stay. Knowing that his great longing—her presence in his life, the light she brought to his days—would not be fulfilled, he still needed to hand this part of himself to her and beg her not to forget that she was worthy of it.
He loved her enough to let her go, because she deserved this sacrifice from him.
Alannah hadn't realised how many people she'd worked with at the firm until they started dropping off chocolates and cards to bid her farewell. "You'll be back soon?" a few asked with varying levels of optimism.
"I sure hope so," Al said each time, not quite sure if she was being honest. Yes, she wanted to come back to the firm, but they were a small-scale, small-town organisation. The project that was taking her to Mansfield was by far the largest one they'd ever handled, and if it went well, Alannah could see herself wanting to take on others of a similar size. If it went well, she'd look like a pretty good applicant for them too. She might have outgrown this place.
She collected the last of the jars of cute house-shaped cookies she'd made for her co-workers into a cardboard box and balanced it on her hip as she tugged the front door closed behind her. The boot of her car was open with another box inside—she'd gone a little overboard with the cookies. Well, at least the office's kitchenette would be well-stocked with her baked goods long after her departure.
The sound of someone pulling up to the curb had her peering around the car. She recognised Harry's car instantly and felt her stomach sink. The last thing she needed right now was a last-ditch attempt from her former fiancé to make her stay. With every night a battle between exhaustion and fever-hot dreams of Rex, she didn't have the energy to deal with Harry's declarations of undying love. "Harry, please," she began resignedly, then her voice cut off.
Rex climbed out of the car.
She dropped the gifts.
He was suddenly beside her. "Alannah? Al, are you okay?"
"I think I'm hallucinating," she said. "Are you Rex with Harry's car or Harry with Rex's face? Have I hit my head on something?"
"It's Harry's car," Rex said slowly.
"Since when are you guys on car sharing terms?"
"Since mine wouldn't start, and he felt guilty for hitting me in the face." He looked down at the battered gifts, as though wondering how they could have gotten there. None of the jars seemed to have broken, but Alannah was too focused on his face to check.
"You hit him in the face too," she noted then shook her head hard. "Rex, what are you doing here?"
"I love you," he blurted out and followed it with a hurricane-strength exhalation that seemed to take all the tension out of his shoulders. His eyes were heartbreakingly earnest. "I'm in love with you, and I didn't tell you before because you didn't want to hear it, and I knew you'd leave anyway. I was an ass to let that fear get in the way of what I needed to say. I was so concerned with mattering to you that I forgot to care about what matters to you."
"You do matter to me," Alannah said weakly.
"I know. But you need to do this, to go on your adventure, and it's so fucking brave of you, Al. It's important to you, and I'm not trying get in the way of that or make it all about me, but I needed you to know that I love you."
There was a pain in her chest like her heart was breaking all over again. "I'm leaving," she said.
"I know."
"In less than a week."
"I know."
"I don't know how long I'll be gone."
"I know."
"I won't be here," Al finally cried. "How can you say this when I'm about to leave you?"
"Because it doesn't matter," Rex said. "It wouldn't matter if you were already gone, I'd still be in love with you." His voice was thick, like he was fighting tears. "I spent years travelling around the world, looking for something that would tell me I was home. And I never found it, until I came back. Until you."
Tears spilled from her eyes. "I can't stay," she said.
"I'm not asking you to. I just… I can't be apart from you while you're still here. I need every minute I can get with you before you go." He wiped her tears away with gentle fingertips. "I needed to give this to you, because it's the most important thing I've ever done. Because you're the most important thing that's ever happened to me."
She threw herself at him. There was no other word for it, the way she leaped into his arms like the ground was on fire. She kissed him, and his touch was fierce with longing, and it set her pulse throbbing.
"I missed you," she managed between kisses. "I missed you so much."
"I missed you," he muttered against her lips, and then his tongue swept into her mouth and the house could have collapsed to rubble behind her and she would hardly have noticed.
Then he'd walked her right up to the house and pushed her back against the door and his body was so solid and real agai
nst hers that she thought she might lose her mind. He was hard, and she pressed herself against his erection, working her body in a slow roll that had him growling her name against her lips. "Let me inside, sassy girl. Let me show you how much I missed you."
"I can feel how much you missed me."
"That's not the fucking half of it. I haven't… I haven't even been able to think about getting off, I was hurting too much. I've got so much of this ache stored up for you, you'll be sitting funny for a week. I'm nothing but need for you."
Al fumbled for the door handle, and the two of them half-fell through it when it opened. Rex pushed her up against a wall and kissed her hard and deep until her nipples were so tight they hurt.
"I shouldn't even be touching you like this," he managed when he pulled back to breathe like he'd just run a race. "I've been at work all day. I'm filthy."
"You're always filthy," Al said and squeaked when he pinched her bottom. "Maybe you need a shower," she added.
"Come in with me. I want you touching me every minute I can get it."
"Yes."
"Up the stairs then, sassy girl."
Al yanked the skirt of her dress up over her ass, fumbling with the fabric in her haste, and slipped her underwear down her legs. She turned her back on him and set her foot on the first stair. "Like this?"
"Christ, yes."
She sashayed up the staircase slowly, arching her back and swaying her hips, keenly aware of the places his gaze caught and held.
He Comes Home Page 18
