‘I didn’t go up.’ She gestured at the mist. ‘Didn’t seem much point with the weather like this.’
‘Will you try tomorrow?’
‘I’m supposed to be leaving. But I was thinking I might go up in the helicopter in the morning, if it’s a clear day.’
He swore sharply, long and loud. ‘You can’t do this.’
Stunned, she stared. ‘Do what?’
‘Mess me around. You know, you say you’re going to go off and do this, that and the other and people who care about you worry the whole time and then you don’t do it anyway so they didn’t have to worry after all and then you turn around and say maybe you’ll do something even more stupid and then they have to worry all over again.’
She frowned, flummoxed by the verbal onslaught she’d never have expected from him. People who cared about her? Her family didn’t even know she was here. The only person who knew she was here was—
‘Who cares about me, Rhys? Why are you so worried about my heart?’
‘It’s not your heart I’m worried about!’ he roared. ‘It’s mine!’ His tension snapped. Anger, frustration and uncontrollable emotion poured out of him as he stood in the path and yelled. ‘I worry about you. I want to take care of you. That’s what people who love each other do. It’s not because I think you’re sick. It’s because I love you!’
He stopped. The sound of his passion reverberated around them.
How could it be that those three little words could have one half of her soaring higher than the sky-touching peaks around them and the other half of her sinking fast into despair and remorse? Raw honesty shone in his face. He was utterly exposed, had opened up completely, for her—inviting her into a place she had no right to be.
What had she done?
‘You can’t expect me to just sit back and agree to whatever stupid scheme you’ve come up with,’ he growled, muscles bunching. ‘You can’t do this emotional blackmail thing—accusing me of mollycoddling when I’m just pointing out common sense.’
Her silly bruised and battered heart beat stronger than it ever had. But her brain screamed—she was wicked to have let this happen. She wished she’d known about his past sooner. She’d have stayed away then, steered well clear so she wouldn’t hurt him.
‘Sienna, I am sick of this talking.’ He strode towards her, words abandoned as his body went into action.
‘Rhys.’ She stumbled and he swiftly pulled her into his arms.
His grip hurt and he lifted her clear off her feet. His mouth pressed hard on hers. And it was so wonderful it blocked the fears scurrying in her head. For a spell it was simply bliss. She reached up with both hands, threading them through his thick hair, and strained to give as well as to take. He raked in her body, pressing her close with a hug that was so tight she struggled to suck air into her squeezed lungs. She couldn’t tell who was shaking more. He was muttering, the words muffled as he kissed her face. It took several moments, many kisses, to decipher what it was he was saying again and again.
‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t go without me.’
‘Rhys.’ She pushed with all her might, pulling her head away and raising tortured eyes to him. ‘I can’t promise you that.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘LET’S go.’ She pulled away from Rhys, starting to head down the track.
He looked stunned. ‘Sienna—’
‘That site guard has been looking at us like we’re loco and about to leap onto the ruins and do something sacrilegious.’
‘If kissing you is sacrilegious, then I intend to be the biggest sinner there is.’ His mouth moved into a sort of smile but his eyes showed his seriousness—and uncertainty. ‘OK, now we have to talk about this. You have to talk.’
‘I know and I will. Let’s just do it somewhere private, OK?’ She didn’t want to stand in the middle of a major tourist attraction, pour her heart out to the love of her life, and then walk away from him. She needed privacy. So did he.
She walked briskly to the entrance to the ruins and got straight on the waiting bus. It wasn’t a long trip down to the town below the ruins, but today it would take for ever.
‘Sienna.’
She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to be tempted. She had to be strong—it was for his own good, damn it. But she hated herself. He’d just told her he loved her and here she was running again, leaving him hanging. She blinked, wanting rid of the sting in her eyes. She spoke quickly, not wanting stilted silence. He didn’t deserve that. ‘How did you get here?’
‘Helicopter.’
‘Helicopter?’ Amazed, she spun to look at him then. ‘Why?’
‘I needed to get here quickly.’
‘You haven’t had time to acclimatise. You might get altitude sickness.’
‘It’s not the altitude that’s making me feel…’ His voice trailed away.
Hurriedly she turned back and looked out the window, her cheeks flaming. Her innards had gone mushy and she fought to maintain her resolve. Only then did she realise how hard he was going to make this.
As the bus moved she chanced another look at him. Less stunned. A lot determined. She had a fight on her hands, but for his sake she’d better win it. She couldn’t bear to hurt him more than he already had been. Guilt ripped through her. She had forced him to open up. She loved him for it. But wasn’t being with her going to hurt him beyond repair?
‘I’m sorry they showed your scar.’ He nodded at the pages still in her hand.
She shrugged. ‘It’s OK. I guess I’m never going to escape it.’
‘No, but you’ll learn to live with it. It’s only a small part of who you are, Sienna.’
She looked at him keenly. ‘Ditto.’
She led him to her hotel, straight in and up the stairs to her room.
He looked about, took in the double bed. ‘No dorm room this time?’
‘I needed some space.’
She recognised the glint in his eye and moved back into the other half of the room. She needed space from him now. If he came any nearer she’d melt into his arms. Not allowed. She had to think of him rather than herself. She picked up her journal, waved it at him like a sword. ‘New year, new journal, new me.’ She laughed—bitter and brittle. ‘I wrote my list, as you know. But there were some things I didn’t write down. The really important things.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I can’t be with someone for ever, Rhys. I can’t ever have kids or a family or anything like that. I decided I was going to live life now. I can’t make promises for the future—not to anyone.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because there might not be a future.’
His colour drained. ‘What are you saying?’
She sighed. ‘I remember when Dad died. Mum was devastated. It nearly killed her too. She was great with us kids but her heart went into the grave with him. You can still see it in her eyes.’ She looked to him, pleading for him to understand. ‘You’ve already been through enough, Rhys. You don’t need to hook up with someone who might not be around for you. I don’t want you to go through that. I don’t want to leave a husband without a wife, children without a mother.’
‘Who says you will? Who says you won’t live to be a hundred? Hell, bits of your heart are practically bionic. They keep coming up with better treatments all the time. Why do you have dibs on dying first? I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.’ His colour had returned, and he flashed his easy smile.
‘Don’t, Rhys.’ He wasn’t taking this seriously. And she meant it, she really meant it.
He sobered. ‘Sienna, a few days ago I might have agreed with you. But now I know I have to be with you for however long fate decides it is we have together. I thought I couldn’t bear a future with you in it. Because of the possibility I might lose you. But the fact is, I can’t bear a present without you. I’m alive now. I want to live now.’
He pointed to her chest. ‘I know the risks. You know the risks. They’re there but they’re not that big. And we’re at risk of a million other things we don’t even know about. We have to live life, Sienna, for as long as we have it. We have to create life—lives even.’ His smile was soft. ‘And we have to let them take their courses. No more sidelines.’
He stepped nearer, spoke up some more. ‘It isn’t your job to protect me. You can’t—not like this.’ He took the journal from her hand, tossed it onto the floor where it landed with a thud. ‘You once told me that people write things down to help make them real. But you didn’t write this down. Why?’