really, because it would never have been finished even if he’d lived to be a hundred and fifty.”
She dropped her gaze. Rhys didn’t say anything and she felt an unexpected surge of gratitude for his sympathetic silence.
“I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, and I think the thing is, he was a man’s man, you know? A soldier. He didn’t talk about his feelings. Ever. God knows how he managed to meet and woo my mother, because he was a man of very few words. But I guess he did woo her, or I wouldn’t be here, would I? And maybe he was different before she died.” She shrugged. “Either way, I think he was probably one of those people who should never have been a parent. He had no natural instinct for it. So he did his duty, but that was about it.”
“Did you join the army for him or for you?”
She gave a tight smile. “Good question. At the time I thought it was for me. But then I kept waiting for some sign from him that I’d finally got it right. Whatever ‘it’ was supposed to be. It never came, of course. But by then I’d worked out that the army and I weren’t a bad fit, after all. You work hard, they reward you. That made sense to me.”
“How did he die?”
“Pancreatic cancer. He didn’t tell me until the end. And even then it was one of the nurses who called me. He died the next day, before I could get compassionate leave to come home.”
“Hard yards, Charlie.” There was a world of sympathy in his voice.
“It wasn’t great. But it wasn’t awful, either. There are a lot of people with uglier stories to tell.”
Rhys frowned. “I’ve always hated that argument. As though just because you can find someone in the world worse off than you, your own stuff isn’t supposed to count or hurt.”
“I was trying to appear stoic, if you must know.”
“Walkers don’t do stoicism. We wail, we complain, we gnash our teeth and bitch and moan. We kick up a stink and rock the boat. You should try it sometime.”
“Maybe I will.”
His eyes were very warm as they watched her and she could only hold his gaze for a few seconds before she had to look away again. His phone beeped to signal an incoming email. She watched as he slid his phone from his pocket to check it. He put it away again almost immediately.
“Real estate agent,” he explained when he saw her surprise. “I looked at an apartment he was selling on the Finger Wharf at Woolloomooloo a few weeks back and he hasn’t stopped bugging me since.”
“You’re not interested?”
“Nope.”
He stretched his arms over his head, straining the buttons on his shirt. Charlie caught herself staring and made herself look away.
“I should head home. Let you get to bed.” Rhys started to lift his legs from the ottoman. “Ow.” He leaned forward, gripping his calf, his face creased with pain.
“What’s wrong?”
“Cramp. Get it all the time,” he said through gritted teeth.
Charlie crossed to his side. “You need to stop clenching. Flex your foot,” she instructed, batting his hands away.
She dug her fingers into his calf, massaging the spasming muscle. He groaned and she dug a little harder, reaching for his foot. Gripping it, she arched it toward his body, then away again so his foot was extended. She repeated the motion and after a few seconds she felt his muscle loosen beneath her fingers.
“Better?”
“Yes. Man, that’s a killer.”
She dug her thumb into his muscle one last time before letting go and straightening.
“You need to stretch more.”
“That’s what my personal trainer says.”
“He’s right.” She was standing so close the outside of her thigh was pressed against his knee. She told herself to move, but Rhys looked at her with an appreciative smile and her legs ignored her.
“You have strong hands,” he said.
“Thanks. I think.”
“That was a compliment, in case you missed it.”
“I’m not sure it is.”
“Sure it is. I didn’t say you had man hands.”
“God forbid.”
His smile broadened. Of its own accord, her gaze drifted below his neck. She could see the dark curls of his chest hair through the open collar of his shirt, and a small patch of his flat belly where his shirt had ridden up. His knees were slightly bent and the fabric of his trousers hugged his legs, outlining his powerful thigh muscles.
She knew what those thighs looked like. She knew what lay between them,