fresh panic clawed at her throat. “You’re not coming with me?”
* * *
“Give us a minute,” Raif said to Mac, before drawing Shanal onto the deck at the front of the boat.
He was shocked to feel her trembling beneath his touch. She’d appeared calmer after that nap she’d taken in the car, and some of the shell-shocked look in her eyes had faded, but it was back again now, with interest.
“Here,” he said, pulling out one of the iron chairs that matched the glass-topped dining table on the deck. “Sit down.”
He squatted in front of her, taking both her hands and chafing them between his. He was worried at how icy cold she felt to his touch.
“I thought you’d be coming, too. You’re not going to leave me, are you?” she whispered.
Raif studied her, taking in the blatant plea in her beautiful green eyes and the worried frown that pulled between her brows. He hadn’t planned to go with her. Honestly, it had never occurred to him that she’d want him there with her. All he’d done today was remove her from a bad situation and organize the escape she had wanted. He hadn’t imagined she’d have any use for him beyond that.
And yet everything he knew about who she was—how strong and intelligent, how confident and admired—seemed to crumble before his eyes as he looked at her now. He’d thought the houseboat would be the ideal opportunity for her to get away and to think—to get things straight in her mind again before she went back to face the music. Why would she want him there for that? Why would she want any man around her when she’d just left her intended groom at the altar?
Though this was a woman who, in his experience at least, had no qualms about publicly humiliating men. Witness his own embarrassment when, in front of his entire family, she’d laughingly spurned his attempts to ask her to his high school graduation dance all those years ago. The sting of embarrassment had hurt far more than he’d ever admitted. Granted, it wasn’t on par with what she’d done to Burton, but her method of making clear she wasn’t interested had a way of staying with a guy.
“I’m sorry,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m asking for more when you’ve already done so much for me. It’s just...” She worried at her lower lip with her teeth and her gaze slipped out over the river that stretched before them.
“It’s just?” he prompted.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered, her words so quietly spoken.
The sudden vulnerability in her voice, hell, in her entire body, hit him fair and square in the solar plexus. Her slender fingers closed around his.
“You’ve already packed a bag,” she said in a lame attempt at humor before becoming all serious again. “Raif, please? I know this is a big favor for me to ask, but I really need to be with someone I can trust right now. Just while I work things out.”
She trusted him? Well, he wished he could say the feeling was mutual, but he certainly didn’t trust her. During the drive here he’d had more time to think. When he’d talked to her after her engagement, she’d been so adamant that the wedding would go ahead. He doubted that anything he’d tried to say back then had been the trigger to change her mind. She’d certainly never before given his thoughts or feelings any weight in the choices she’d made. So what had changed things for her? She had to be holding something back, perhaps the very something that had put the haunted look in her eyes.
He considered her plea, turning it over in his mind. He wasn’t prepared for this. Still, what harm would it do? Working the viticulture side of the family business certainly had its advantages come wintertime in that things definitely slowed down for him once he’d finished winter cane pruning on the vineyard. There was no other pressing business holding him at The Masters, nothing to prevent him from taking a week off work, if that’s the time it took for Shanal to ready herself to face the world again. Besides, there were three bedrooms on the boat.
Movement in the cabin caught his attention. Mac was getting fidgety, casting them a curious glance every now and then. Raif had to make a decision. Leave her to her own devices, or go with her. He knew what Ethan would do. More importantly, what Ethan would expect him to do.
Sometimes family honor was a bitch.
“Fine,” he said with a huff of breath. “I’ll come with you.”
Relief swamped her and she put out her hands to grasp his.
“Thank you. I owe you so much already—”
Raif pulled away from her and stood up. “You don’t owe me anything.”
She felt his withdrawal as if it was a slap. She lifted a hand to her throat as she watched him go back inside the main cabin. God, she’d made such a mess of all this. Did he regret rescuing her today? She wouldn’t blame him if he did. It was one thing to whisk her away from the scene of her shattered future, quite another to continue on the journey with her. She was asking such a lot from him. And it wasn’t as if they’d ever been close.
Aware of his crush on her, she’d always made a point of keeping her distance, never doing anything to lead him on. She’d felt that in the long run, that was the kinder choice—though admittedly, that had been as much for her sake as for his. Ever since he’d transitioned from schoolboy to young man, there had been something about Raif that had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. Something indefinable that always put her on edge when he was around, and that made her uncomfortably aware of herself and her body’s reactions to him.
She’d told herself way back then that it was ridiculous. She had her whole life planned out, and someone like Raif had no place in it. He already had that devil-may-care attitude to life, while she was always quieter, more considered in her decisions. They’d had nothing in common whatsoever aside from Ethan as a link.
But that had been nearly a decade ago. A lot had changed, for both of them, since then. He’d become fully a man, and was now even more confident, more self-assured, with that air of entitlement and power that all the Masters men effortlessly exuded. And she? Well, she was still that nerd with her nose in her research, and she was no less discomfited by his presence than she’d ever been.
That moment back at his house, when his fingertips had touched her spine, had felt electric. All her nerve endings had jittered with the shock of it—and now the two of them would be confined together for the better part of the next few days. She started to wonder if she’d made a mistake in asking him to stay.
From inside, she could hear Raif’s deep voice as he talked to Mac. Soon after, the two men hugged briefly and Mac debarked. Raif assumed his position at the helm and started up the engine. Mac cast them off from the pier with a wave. As the boat eased into the murky river waters, swollen with recent winter rain, Shanal felt a little of the tension that gripped her body begin to ease. She rose from the chair and went inside.
“I guess this has put a spanner in everything for you,” she said, as Raif met her gaze.
His broad shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. “It’s not a problem. I’ll let the family know I’ll be away for a few days, and besides, I have nothing more important to deal with right now.”
She felt the
