Here Comes the Rainne Again

by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

  Her eyes went wide. “What?”

  “I’m moving in. Here. With you.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  He smiled that devastatingly sexy smile that made her mind turn to mush. She couldn’t afford a mushy mind. She needed to think straight. She closed her eyes tight against the distraction.

  “You can’t stay here.” Her stomach clenched with panic. She didn’t know what to think. He wasn’t making sense. What about his business? His future in Invertary? What about not trusting her to stay with him? Was he just going to ignore it all?

  “Course I can.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. At least she couldn’t see it. That helped her resolve.

  “We talked about this. You don’t trust me. The problems in our past are too big to overcome.”

  “Well, to be honest, we didn’t talk. You talked and then you left. You have got to stop doing that, Rainbow. It makes it hard to have a conversation when you keep leaving.”

  She opened her mouth to answer that stupidity, but he put a finger to her lips. “Here’s what I was going to say before you did my thinking for me. Three years ago I tried to push you into a commitment with me that you weren’t ready for. That we weren’t ready for. I understand that now.”

  She started to protest, but he tapped her lips. She opened her eyes and frowned at him. If he did that again, she was so going to bite his finger.

  “I was immature,” he said. “I was trying to tie you to me in order to ease my fears. It wasn’t realistic. It made you panic. Then when you left, it made me close up emotionally.”

  “Close up emotionally?”

  “I spent five days stuck in a hospital room with Mitch. When he wasn’t talking about the epiphany he had when he almost died, he was analysing me. It was hell.”

  “And yet here you are, quoting the man.” It was amazing how he could make her smile even when they were in the middle of something so heavy.

  “I didn’t say he was wrong, just that I didn’t need to endure all that chitchat, heart-to-heart crap.”

  “Did you have to go straight out and fish and hunt something to prove you’re still a manly man?” She really wanted to giggle.

  “No.” Alastair’s face sobered. “I came straight here.”

  Oh. Her eyes dropped away from his penetrating stare, but it didn’t help. Instead of the emotion in his eyes, she was confronted by ab perfection and temptation of a different kind.

  “Anyway,” he said. “I sorted out our problems while I was stuck in the hospital.”

  She looked back up at him. “Do I want to hear this?”

  “Aye, you do. Because it means we both get what we want.”

  “Which is?” Her heart pounded a mile a minute at the thought of getting what she wanted. Of getting him. For real. Forever.

  “Each other, Rainbow. Each other.” He took a deep breath, and she noticed the waver in it. He was nervous. For some reason, knowing he felt that way too calmed her. “Here’s the plan. I’m going to move in here because this is where you feel you need to be and I’m okay with that.”

  “You hate the city, Alastair. You said you wanted to live in Invertary forever.”

  “I do. But I can postpone forever for as long as you need to be here.”

  Her heart turned to a puddle in her chest.

  “As for the rest. According to Mitch, my inner child needs to believe you won’t run away again.” He rolled his eyes. “I realise it’s unreasonable to want you to promise something you can’t guarantee. So I’ve come up with a compromise.” He paused, looking quite pleased with himself. “I want you to promise me tomorrow. Just tomorrow. One day. That’s all. Promise that you’ll be here, with me, tomorrow. Can you do that?”

  She noticed a little twitch at the edge of his eye, telling her how anxious he was about her answer.

  “Yes,” she said. “I will be here, with you, tomorrow.”

  “Good. Then tomorrow night you can promise me the next day. We’ll take it one day at a time. No guarantees on a future neither of us can predict. Just tomorrow.” He bent forward and kissed her lips oh so softly. “Then one day, you’ll look up and realise you’ve promised me all of your tomorrows and I’ll realise that there was never any chance of you leaving me.”

  Her heart soared. He was doing it. He was trusting her to stay. Giving her a second chance not to hurt him. It was something she’d never thought he’d be able to do. Brave man. Her brave man.

  “All of my tomorrows,” she whispered against his lips. “Is that what you want, Alastair?”

  “Only if you give them to me. I won’t force you and I won’t judge you if you can’t.”

  She leaned in to kiss him, overwhelmed by his courage and trust. He groaned and kissed her hotly. Deeply. Enclosing her in his embrace. Keeping her safe and secure. Letting her be who she was meant to be. They were both breathing hard when they parted.

  Rainne snuggled down into his arms. “I’m still too old for you.” She placed her cheek against his chest where she could listen to his heartbeat. It beat for her. She believed that now.

  “It’s terrible.” He trailed his fingers up and down her back. “I can see it now. We’re in an old folks’ home; you’re eighty-six and I’m a mere eighty. And will those other old folks let us forget it? They will not. The amount of teasing you’ll have to endure for being married to a toy-boy. It will drive you insane.”

  Rainne stilled against him. “Married?”

  He went tense under her cheek. She heard his heart race and knew he hadn’t meant to say that. He was trying so hard not to push her to commit. Trying hard not to make the same mistakes he’d made last time. But she wasn’t the same scared girl she’d been three years earlier. She knew what she wanted now. And she’d learned to trust that Alastair knew what he wanted too.

  “You expect us to live in sin for the rest of our lives?” he joked, in an attempt to ease them away from the tension.

  But Rainne didn’t need it. She wanted forever. She wanted to give him all her days. Whether that was one at a time, or in a huge upfront lump sum, it didn’t matter to her. They all belonged to him anyway. They always had.

  “I want to get married in Invertary. In the summer, so there’s no chance of snow. And I don’t want to get married at the castle. I think on the side of the loch. That would be pretty. I’ll wear a rainbow-coloured dress and you’ll wear a dark suit, to match your dark eyes.”

  Alastair pushed her onto her back and leaned over her. “Rainbow, you don’t need to say that. I’m fine with tomorrow.”

  “I know. And I’ll give you tomorrow too. Every day, I’ll give you tomorrow. And when we get married, I’ll promise you all of my tomorrows. They belong to you anyway. They always have.” She bit her lip, stealing Alastair’s gaze to her mouth. “I need to stay in Glasgow for the next year or two. Then we can go back to Invertary.”

  “We don’t need to. I’m happy being wherever you are.”

  Rainne didn’t think it was possible to love him more. The man who wanted to sacrifice his dreams for her.

  “Two years, maximum, and then we go home. Forever,” she promised. “I miss the green hills too. And how will you teach the children to fish if we live here?”

  “Children?” The hope in his eyes undid her.

  “We’ll have two.” A tear slid down her cheek. He sucked in a breath. “We’ll give them normal names, like George and Susan. None of this Rainbow and Lake nonsense. They’ll learn to fish. But no hunting; it’s too dangerous.”

  “Rainbow.” He said her name with such reverence it made the tears flow faster. He buried his face in her neck and held her tight enough to make her believe he’d never let her go.

  “I want a dog.” Her voice was husky with emotion. “We moved around so much growing up, I never got to have a pet.”

  “You can have whatever you want.” He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her throat.

  “I want a house near Lake and Kirsty.”

&
nbsp; “Done.”

  “I’d like to start another business and get it right this time.”

  “It’s yours. Whatever you want. It’s yours.”

  “I want to be Rainbow Stewart. I want to be yours.”

  He looked into her eyes, and the love she saw there overwhelmed her. “You always were, Rainbow. You were always mine.”

  And then he kissed her, long, slow and hard.

  Epilogue

  Callum McKay looked around his newly assembled team of security professionals. He wasn’t impressed.

  They’d taken over a building near Victoria train station in London. It was right in the heart of the city. The old offices needed a bit of work, but Julia had told him she had it under control—by email. He’d yet to talk to his assistant in person. Oh, he’d tried, but it never went well and usually ended up with her hiding for the rest of the day. The current meeting was a typical example of their insane working relationship—the rest of his team were sitting around the boardroom table. Not Julia. Her chair was wedged behind a humungous office palm, her back to the wall and a large laptop obscuring most of her face.

  And she was the least of his worries. Ryan didn’t take anything he said seriously, and Joe seemed to be at a loss without his best friend Grunt. Then there was Rachel. Since Harry’s company had merged with Lake’s, Rachel now officially worked for Callum in her role as cybersecurity manager. Only it seemed Rachel hadn’t gotten the memo about the new hierarchy. She was currently scowling at him as she tapped her professionally manicured blood-red nails on the table in front of her. Her first words to him were: “Really? You’re in charge? I don’t think so.” Callum did not see a relaxed working relationship in their future.

  And then there were the last two members of his newly formed team. Dimitri Raast and Megan Donaldson. One was trained but his loyalty was seriously in question. The other had no training at all and far too much enthusiasm to be safe on a job. They glared across the table at each other. The sexual tension between them was palpable. Just what he needed—two operatives who were unstable and more likely to jump each other than deal with the enemy.

  “Okay,” he said to his team. “Welcome to the first meeting of the London division of Benson Security. We have our first case.” As if by magic, a photo appeared on the wall behind him. He glanced at Julia, whose hand was poised over the trackpad on her laptop. Of course she’d set up a PowerPoint presentation. Why hadn’t he thought of it? Callum pointed at the man on the wall behind him.

  “Rudi Abramovich,” he said. “This man has Dimitri’s sister and we’re going to get her back.”

  More Books From Janet

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  Scottish Highlands (Romantic Comedy)

  Lingerie Wars, Invertary Book 1

  Goody Two Shoes, Invertary Book 2

  Magenta Mine, Invertary Book 3

  Calamity Jena, Invertary Book 4

  Bad Boy, Invertary Book 5

  Here comes the Rainne again, Invertary Book 6

  Caught, Invertary Book 7

  Benson’s Boys (Romantic Suspense)

  Reckless, Book 1

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  Rage, Book 3

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  Sinclair Sister Trilogy (Romantic Comedy)

  Can’t Tie Me Down! Book 1

  Other Books (Contemporary Romance)

  Mad Love, London Book 1

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  about the author

  I’m a Scot, living in New Zealand and married to a Dutch man. I write contemporary romance with a humorous bent – this is mainly due to the fact I have an odd sense of humour and can’t keep it out of anything I do! If I wasn’t a writer, I’d like to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Indiana Jones. Unfortunately, both these roles have already been filled. Which may be a good thing as I have no fighting skills, wouldn’t know a precious relic if it hit me in the face and have an aversion to blood. When I’m not living in my head, I’m a mother to two kids, one pet sheep, one dog, two cats, three alpacas and an escape artist chicken.

  You can use this contact form to get in touch or email me at janet@janetelizabethhenderson.com

  copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Janet Kortlever

  ISBN 978-0-473-34942-4

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful privacy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior permission can be obtained by contacting the author through her website. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.

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  www.janetelizabethhenderson.com

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