the frame back to the chair with him and sat down, still staring at it, drinking in her every feature. It’d been a while since he’d allowed himself to do this, to linger over thoughts of her, and it felt right tonight.
He let the memories come. He opened himself to them, to Noelle, so much so that he could practically hear her voice, smell her sweet scent, feel her energy in the room with him. And as he looked into her eyes, those beautiful blue eyes that matched her sister’s, he could imagine what she’d say to him if she were able to come back and have one more conversation with him. Once she got over the initial shock of what he’d done earlier today, she would no doubt threaten his life if he ever dared to hurt Rachel.
With or without an imagined decree from Noelle, he was certain of one thing—he never wanted to hurt Rachel. Directly or indirectly. And that meant one thing—he couldn’t just try to shove what had happened under the rug and ignore it. Suck though it might, he was going to have to go back to Rachel and level with her about his intentions once she’d had time to work through some things. And then he was going to have to hold himself to the promise that he would never let things get physically out of hand between them again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THERE WAS NO way to miss it when she turned down her street—Cale’s orange Sport Trac stood out in the gloomy, overcast day like a bright red clown nose in an otherwise black-and-white photograph.
If her street hadn’t been so short, therefore making it unlikely that he hadn’t also noticed her car approaching, Rachel would have given serious thought to backing up and driving elsewhere. As it was, she pulled into her driveway and garage without glancing his way or giving him any indication that he was welcome.
Why in the world was he here? Hadn’t she made her feelings known last night when she’d forced him to leave? It hadn’t even been fifteen hours. Nothing had changed.
As she’d suspected, he didn’t appear to care whether he was welcome or not. When she got out of her car, he was walking into the garage toward her, looking at her expectantly.
Rachel ignored the pang of longing brought on by a single glance at those green eyes. She turned away and went to the stairs without a word.
“Ignoring me isn’t going to change anything,” Cale said from the bottom of the stairs.
He wasn’t scoring any points by speaking that truth. “Knock yourself out,” she said flippantly as she unlocked the door at the top of the steps. “Come on up.”
Cale clambered up the wooden steps and joined her in the kitchen as she took off her rain jacket.
“Not the best weather for kayaking,” he said.
“How long have you been waiting for me?”
“Long enough to know you must be cold.”
Freezing, but she wasn’t going to admit it to him. She hadn’t expected sunshine, but the precipitation on the weather forecast radar had been spotty enough that she’d hoped to stay mostly dry on her kayak outing. The mist that had shrouded the bay for the past two hours and the unseasonably cool temperature had penetrated her lightweight rain jacket within minutes of paddling away from Buck’s dock.
“How’d you know I wasn’t at work?”
“I went there and checked.”
Rachel made a point of showing no reaction to his supposed dedication, but it took significant effort. “Talking about it isn’t going to change anything, either, you know,” she said, echoing his earlier declaration.
“I’m aware of that.” His tone was somber, as if he, too, were experiencing some hard-core regrets over what had happened. “Do you want to change into dry clothes before we discuss this?”
She wanted to take a long, cleansing, hot shower and then curl up in bed for the rest of the day. Preferred never to discuss “this.” “Give me five minutes,” she said. “If I take too long, feel free to give up on me.”
Not surprisingly, though she did take closer to ten minutes to change clothes and dry her hair, Cale proved he wasn’t the type to just give up. In fact, he’d made himself at home in the living room and had thought to start the gas log fireplace. Either he was beyond considerate, or he was scheming to get her down there, knowing she wouldn’t be able to ignore the warmth.
Unable to resist, she took the