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He grabbed the railing and went over the side.
She stifled a gasp of shock. He’d simply…jumped. It had to be a twelve-foot drop, and he’d simply jumped. Her stunned mind tried to tell her he was that desperate to get away. From her. But to believe that, she had to believe that Rylan Rafferty was the worst kind of liar.
I share it with no one…you’re an exception.
Belatedly she realized she hadn’t heard any crash or anything beyond a slight thump as he hit the floor. He’d landed with no more noise than if he’d been that big cat she always thought of when he moved. And it occurred to her that perhaps this was his usual method of getting downstairs.
Driven by a need to see what he was doing, to see him, as if now that he wasn’t beside her she couldn’t quite believe any of this had really happened, she rolled out of the bed herself. Forgoing underwear and shoes as he had, she pulled on her own jeans, but added a T-shirt. His shirt, telling herself it was because she wasn’t exactly sure where hers had ended up. It smelled like him, that combination of wild sage and Ry that made her breathe deep.
She crept downstairs. Saw him standing before the easel, jeans low on his narrow hips because they were only half-zipped. He half-turned to pick something up from the workbench, and that downward arrow of dark hair she’d traced last night drew her gaze and kicked up her pulse. Then he was drawing, moving in quick, sure motions that told her this was what had driven him. He hadn’t been leaving her, he’d been going there. Because he had no choice.
Her fingers were itching, and she walked as quietly as she could back to the spot near the top of the stairs where he’d set her backpack when he’d slid it off her shoulder last night. She had the camera in her hands in seconds, and was back at the rail. She snapped off several shots, framing, focusing, trying to capture the pure energy of the man, that fluid grace.
And then she stopped. She set the camera down and stared at her hands. Because they were still itching, fingers curling with the need that had always meant she needed to do what she’d just done. But this time, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t her camera, that device she used to both capture the world around her and to insulate her from it, that she wanted.
That’s why you’re always behind the camera, so you never have to be in front of it.
No one except Nick had ever understood that before. But Ry did. He understood that—and her—better than anyone ever had.
And it was Ry she wanted her hands on.
But she couldn’t interrupt him, not now, not if he’d been driven by a vision strongly enough to take that literal leap. So she tiptoed down the stairs into the studio, but stopped several feet away. For now, she would content herself with watching. Watching, and marveling that this amazing creature, this beautiful, powerful man, wanted her.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Good morning.”
Ry nearly jumped. His mother had always had that knack of being able to sneak up on you. It was merely unsettling now; when he’d been a kid it had been a definite hazard of doing anything he wasn’t supposed to be doing. But this morning he’d only come in for coffee, because he’d been out at his place.
“Hi,” he said, finishing pouring the coffee.
“Up late last night?” she asked, her motherly tone just a shade too light and airy as Quinta politely sat at their feet.
He froze. There was no way she could know, was there? “Uh…”
She laughed. “It’s about time, Rylan. It’s about time.”
“What is?” he asked cautiously.
She rolled her eyes at him, then looked pointedly down at the kitchen counter. Where he’d just filled two mugs. “Oh,” he said lamely.
“Not to mention that cat that got the canary look in your eye.”
“Oh.” Just as lamely.
She smiled then. “Why do you think I kept leaving you two alone together?”
“Oh.” It suddenly seemed to be the only word in his vocabulary. But she had done that, now that he thought about it.
“She’ll take some special care, Ry. She’s had a rough life.”
There was no point in denial, not in the face of the mom mind-reading. He pulled himself together. “I know. She’s hiding in plain sight. What’s that you used to say? Hiding her light under a bushel?” He told her as much of what Kaitlyn had said as he thought he could without betraying a trust. Because he knew his mother’s heart. Then he held the gaze of the woman who’d been the rock of all their lives since he’d been thirteen. “She could use some mothering. Your kind. The right kind. The best kind.”
He saw the sudden sheen of her eyes. “I think I can manage that. Because she’s perfect, for you. Tell her welcome for me, until I can do it myself.”
She stretched up and kissed his cheek, patted his arm. And then she was gone, the ever-loyal Quinta at her heels.
When he got back to the loft Kaitlyn was awake, but still in bed. He handed her the coffee mug, and after she’d taken a long drink, said casually, “Mom says welcome to the Raffertys.”
