Rhys's Redemption Read online

  RHYS’S REDEMPTION

  Anne McAllister

  Rhys's Rule: Don't Get Involved!

  Rhys Wolfe's demanding job left no time for romance—which was fine with him. He was close friends with his gorgeous neighbor, Mariah. But that was all they were—friends. Their one night of passion he had been a mistake…

  Rhys didn't know the half of it. It was bad enough she'd been in love with him for years; now Mariah was expecting his child! She knew Rhys had been hurt before, but their baby needed a father. Mariah was determined to teach Rhys to love again, though she had less than nine months to try!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Rhys Wolfe wanted a hot shower, a cold beer, and twenty-four hours of sleep—in that order.

  It was six a.m. in New York City, buses were rumbling, horns were honking, the city was waking up. And he was ready to hit the sack.

  It wasn’t six a.m. in his head. He wasn’t sure, in fact, what time it was. All he knew was that he’d been playing “planes, trains and automobiles” for hours, and he was ready to drop.

  He fumbled with his key in the lock to the ornate steel gate under the stoop that led to his brownstone garden apartment, glancing warily up at the flat two floors above as he did so.

  Was Mariah up?

  Lying in wait?

  Yeah. Sure. Like she’d been standing at the window for the past nine weeks just waiting to catch a glimpse of him.

  Like she cared.

  Rhys twisted the key, opened the gate, then the door to his apartment. That was the trouble. She did care.

  Mariah was his friend. And he was hers.

  Or had been.

  He didn’t know what he was now.

  He shut the door behind him, dropped his duffel bag on the floor, shut his eyes and sagged against the door, letting the weariness—and the worry—overtake him.

  He hadn’t been home in over two months. Not since…

  Not since he’d awakened to find himself in bed with his upstairs neighbor.

  His delectable, delightful upstairs neighbor. His friend.

  Mariah.

  God, what a mess. Usually he was eager to get home, looking forward to a respite from the demands and stress of his job as part of a specialized firefighting unit. Usually he could hardly wait to give Mariah a call and see what she’d been up to for the past few weeks.

  He sighed and rolled his shoulders, then began unbuttoning his shirt. Now he didn’t want to call her at all. He didn’t know what to say to her.

  That was the trouble, he thought, with having sex with a woman you cared about. It complicated things. Messed everything up. Led to unreasonable expectations.

  Like a relationship.

  Like marriage.

  No. Rhys shook his head fiercely as he shed his shirt and headed toward the bathroom. Mariah knew better than that.

  She, of all people, knew how he felt about marriage. She’d heard him expound on the subject often enough.

  Rhys Wolfe wasn’t looking for marriage, for commitment, for responsibility. He’d been there, done that. He wasn’t doing it again.

  And he made it a point to say that to every woman he met who might be tempted to think otherwise. It was a precaution. Good common sense. That way none of them could say she hadn’t been warned.

  The only women who went to bed with Rhys Wolfe knew the score. Having sex with Rhys meant fun and games. No strings attached.

  Rhys never slept with women to whom it might mean more than that.

  It was his first rule of self-preservation—a rule he’d made eight years ago. And he’d never broken it.

  Until that night nine weeks back.

  Right after Jack died.

  Jack.

  He’d just finished the first assignment he’d done without Jack. Tough, competent, laughing Jack, The one they’d always marveled at—the man death couldn’t touch.

  “Lucky Jack,” his friends, the guys on his high-intensity, high-risk, internationally known oil well and rig firefighting team, always called him.

  “I’ll go with Jack,” they always said when the danger in their job was greater than usual. “Jack’s lucky.”

  But ten weeks ago, on a North Sea rig, Jack’s luck had run out. It had happened during a fire no different than those they’d fought a hundred times before. No one had been careless. No one had screwed up. As hard as he tried, Rhys still couldn’t nail down a reason for what happened.

  Other than that Jack’s time had been up.

  Lucky Jack’s luck had run out.

  Five days later Rhys had come home from his best friend’s funeral, still reeling, shattered, angry and distraught. Mourning Jack had been bad enough, but worse than that even had been the memories that had crowded his mind.

  Memories of another fire, another funeral—Sarah’s—eight years before.

  Sarah. His wife.

  Sarah, his childhood love.

  Sarah’s time hadn’t been up! Rhys was sure of it. She hadn’t had to die.

  If he’d been home that night instead of working ridiculously long hours, if he’d been with her, like a proper husband, instead of trying, and failing, to be the perfect son, Sarah—and their unborn child—would be alive today.

  But he hadn’t been.

  He’d been in the family business then—right out of college and determined to prove himself, to show his father and his oldest brother, Dominic, that he could work as many hours as they could, be as successful as they were. He hadn’t even gone home for dinner. He’d worked right through, stopping only to call Sarah and say, “I’ll be late. Don’t wait up.”

  She hadn’t. Under doctor’s orders to get lots of rest, Sarah had gone to bed early that night. But first, apparently, she’d lit a candle. At least that was what the fire marshal told him later.

  “I’ll leave a light on for you,” she’d told Rhys.

  A candle.

  She’d been asleep when the fire broke out in their apartment. She’d never awakened.

  He’d lost her—and their child—that night.

  And nothing Rhys could do would bring them back.

  He understood that. Eventually he’d managed to accept it.

  He lived with the pain. And the guilt.

  To his father’s consternation, Rhys had quit his job with the family firm, choosing instead to go into firefighting.

  “What the hell for?” his dad had demanded. “It isn’t going to bring Sarah back.”

  “No.” Rhys knew that. But he needed to do it. Needed to battle again and again the demons that took his wife from him. To do what he could to win the fight he’d lost before he knew how much it mattered.

  He was a good firefighter. Determined. Focused. Cool and controlled in the face of the flames.

  And so he atoned. Or tried to.

  Over the past eight years, he’d got past it. He was sure of that. He had a life now. A new apartment on the West Side, away from the East Side neighborhood where he and Sarah had lived. He had friends. And, now and then, he had women.

  But he wasn’t marrying again. Ever.

  He wasn’t letting himself get close to anyone again. That part he hadn’t got past. Loving someone the way he’d loved Sarah hurt too much.

  He couldn’t do it again.

  Wouldn’t. Ever.

  So he always kept things light. He had friends. He had the occasional lover. But never a friend who was also a lover.

  Until he came home after Jack had died. That night the grief and the memories had swallowed him whole.

  And Mariah—poor unsuspecting Mariah—surprised to see his light on, had stopped by to tap on his door and see what was going on.

  He didn’t remember much of what happened after that.

  He’d tried not to.
For over two months he had tried not to.

  He hadn’t wanted to remember how she’d held him in her arms, had kissed him and soothed him, had let him—a man who needed no one—cling to her like a child.

  He shut that out.

  Just as he shut out how, in another way, he’d felt very much unlike a child. The flames of need had licked at him, had driven him to kiss her, to touch her, to seek the softness of her. His body had needed the solace of her. Desperately.

  And slowly, gently, and then with what his shattered mind remembered as a passion equal to his, Mariah had given it to him.

  He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t think about that.

  Couldn’t let himself remember.

  Because when he did, even now, his body betrayed him, and he wanted it to happen again.

  It couldn’t happen again!

  He wouldn’t let it.

  He cared about Mariah. As a friend. He wouldn’t let it become more.

  He could still remember how shocked he’d been to awaken and find her asleep beside him in his bed.

  Rhys had never slept with any woman—not since Sarah.

  It was too intimate. It implied too much.

  But that night he had slept with Mariah. When he’d finally opened his eyes in the pale dawn, it was to find her curled around him, her cheek nestled against his shoulder, a leg casually draped over his, one arm across his belly and tucked against his hip.

  He’d been afraid to breathe. He hadn’t dared move.

  But he’d needed to. Desperately. He knew he had to get out of there—without awakening her.

  What the hell would he have said to her if he’d still been there when she opened her eyes?

  He hadn’t known then.

  He didn’t know now.

  He’d spent the past nine weeks trying to figure it out.

  He was still hoping something would occur to him when he saw her. Maybe, with luck—and knowing how he felt about that sort of thing—Mariah would take the lead. Maybe she would make light of it, blow it off. Maybe she would tell him it didn’t matter, would let him off the hook.

  He drew a shaky breath. Yes, she could do that. She was that kind of woman. Generous. Kind. Rhys liked her enormously.

  One of the things he liked best about her was that she was nothing like Sarah.

  Mariah was tall and slender. Willowy, he sometimes thought, but resilient. Strong. She wasn’t fragile or petite like Sarah had been. She embraced the world with open arms. Sarah had always been more cautious, content to let him take the lead.

  Their hair was different, too. Sarah had had a blonde pixie cut that he could ruffle with his fingers. Mariah had long brown hair, the color of chestnuts, that he remembered tangling his fingers in that night.

  He gave his head a shake and shoved the memory away.

  He needed to think about Mariah as a friend. He needed to get things back on that footing. It was what they both wanted after all. She’d never done anything to make him believe she wanted more. It was what had made him comfortable with her in the first place.

  She’d always just been his friend.

  From the first time he’d met her, when she was having a cookout on her terrace and had invited all the neighbors, she’d made him feel like a good friend. Always cheerful and easy to talk to, Mariah was the perfect neighbor. She was fun—to do things with, to talk to. He loved going jogging with her or to a film or a new restaurant or a gallery opening with her when he was home.

  And she never demanded more.

  He didn’t want to lose that.

  She wouldn’t want to lose it either. He hoped. He ran a hand through his uncombed hair and yawned.

  After he'd showered and slept, he decided, then he would face her. He would tell her how much he valued her friendship, how he didn’t want to ruin it, how he wanted things to be the way they had been before.

  And then he would grin at her and say, “Want to go to the top of the Empire State Building?”

  And she would know that everything was the same.

  It had started as a joke between them three years ago when Mariah found out that she, a transplant from Kansas, had been up to the top of the Empire State Building and that Rhys, a native New Yorker, never had.

  She had insisted he had to go. He’d put her off. Once. Twice. A dozen times at least.

  Until finally she’d grabbed him as they’d been walking home from a film late one night. She’d hailed a cab and directed the driver to Thirty-fourth Street.

  “Don’t be crazy,” he’d protested.

  But over Rhys’s groans she’d insisted. “It’s beautiful. Magical,” she’d told him. “You have to see it.”

  She was right. It had been magical. They’d gone late enough that there weren’t very many people there. It had been a beautiful clear night and New York had been spread out below them, glittering like a fistful of diamonds tossed by a giant.

  It was breathtaking. Rhys couldn’t believe he’d ignored it for so many years.

  “See?” Mariah had said, watching him, not the view.

  “I see,” he’d said. And in fact he’d been the one to insist they stay, just walking around looking, until at last they were thrown out.

  They’d gone back many times after that. Almost every time he’d come home they’d gone.

  Except the last time.

  Rhys drew a harsh breath again as he remembered what they’d done the last time. Then once more he tried to shove the thought away.

  It didn’t matter. It was over.

  This time they’d go.

  He started toward the shower and was tempted by the refrigerator’s hum as he passed the kitchen. Visions of that nice cold bottle of beer swirled through his sleep-deprived head. But he knew from experience that the beer would taste a whole lot better when he was clean.

  He had a month’s worth of Middle Eastern sand, dust and grit to scrub off this time, not to mention the oil and grime and ash residue from the fire.

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t showered. It was that it never did any good.

  There was always more dust, more sand, more ash, more grime. It got, almost literally, under his skin. And he knew from experience that as long as he was there—wherever there was this time—he wasn’t going to be rid of it until he got home again.

  He kicked off his shoes and socks and stripped off his khakis and shorts as he went down the hall, letting them lie where they fell. He was naked by the time he padded into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

  In seconds he had a cascade of hot water. It was bliss.

  As far as Rhys was concerned, the best thing about his apartment was the hot water heater. He didn’t mind cold, short serviceable showers at work, but when he came home he wanted hot water and lots of it.

  In fact, he needed it. He knew from experience that it would take gallons and gallons to get rid of the remaining physical vestiges of the fire he’d battled last.

  It would take longer yet for the memory of the flames to recede and for the everyday life everyone else took for granted to nudge its way past the curtain of smoke and fire that separated his work from their lives.

  He took his time, letting the water wash over him. He welcomed the beat of it on his skull. It felt clean, pure, fresh.

  He felt better. More alive. He began to whistle as he soaped his lean, hard body quickly. Then with rough, callused fingers he scrubbed the shampoo into his scalp, then ducked his head once more and rinsed it out again.

  A glance showed him that the water running off looked clean enough now. So he shut off the taps, grabbed a towel and began to dry himself.

  Then he brushed his teeth and ran a hand over his heavily whiskered jaw. He hadn’t shaved in five days at least— hadn’t had time. Now he decided it could wait another twelve hours.

  He scrubbed the towel once more over his head, getting most of the dampness out of his short dark hair. Then he padded, still naked, face in the towel as he rubbed his scalp, toward the bedroom—and b
umped into something soft yet undeniably firm.

  “What the—?” He jerked back, lowered the towel, and felt a shock jolt right through him. He gaped. “Mariah?”

  The last person he expected to see—the very last person he wanted to see—was standing in the doorway to his bedroom wearing a skimpy pale blue cotton nightgown—and not much else. Her dark hair was sleep-tousled and tangled, her face was pale and as shocked as his as she stared at him. In her arms she clutched a pile of clothes.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Mariah would have liked to ask him the same thing!

  Odd sounds had awakened her from a sound sleep. At first she’d fitted them into her dream. Footsteps. Water running. But then there was the whistling.

  She couldn’t fit in whistling.

  And that was when she’d woken up. She’d lain there for long moments trying to sort things out. And then, with a shaft of clear thought and blinding panic, she’d realized the only thing it could be: Rhys!

  She’d scrambled out of bed, grabbed her clothes and headed for the door. She’d get dressed in her own apartment. Get herself put together. And then she’d come back to face him.

  Instead she ran smack into him coming out of the bathroom.

  And all he was wearing was a towel—over his head!

  Then he lowered it. They stared at each other in astonishment. And rapidly, thank God, he shifted the towel south.

  Mariah swallowed hastily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you. I was… You always told me I could use your place when you were gone… if I had guests.” She was making a hash of it. Damn him for surprising her! “My cousin Erica is here with her family… from Emporia. I thought it would be easier to let them have my place.” And I didn’t have a clue you’d be back!

  He rubbed a hand down his face, then smiled at her. “Hey, it doesn’t matter,” he said cheerfully. “I remember what I told you. Of course it’s okay.” He gave a wave of his hand. “No problem. Go back to bed. I’ll crash on the sofa.”

  “No.” She didn’t want that. She wanted to talk to him. To clear the air. But not now. Not like this. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re obviously exhausted. You’ll have your bed. It’s time for me to get up anyway. I’ll just change these sheets and be out of your way.” She turned away as she spoke and hurried back into his room to rip the sheets off the bed.