She grunted. “Fine. One email and you can put it away.”
“That’s my girl,” he said softly. “Leaning in to self-care.”
“If you start talking about airplanes and me needing to put my own oxygen mask on first, you can stop now. Molly gives me that lecture all the time.”
“Ahh…” He pressed a kiss against her forehead. “But Molly is not a licensed pilot.”
Rachel smiled then. A barely there lift of the edges of her lips before she closed her eyes again.
“It’s nice doing business with you,” he whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“There’s a lot of space between all or nothing.” — Denise, California, USA
Rachel
The first thing Rachel noticed was that her body felt like it’d been through a war, childbirth, and a plane crash simultaneously. Still, remarkably, this was an improvement from the day before.
The second thing Rachel noticed was there was a man in her bed.
Travis.
His eyes were closed, his breaths even. He seemed…peaceful.
She smiled.
He hadn’t gotten under the blankets with her. No, he was sleeping on top of the comforter, fully clothed, breathing softly.
The third thing Rachel noticed was that she liked waking up next to him.
They’d had sex, cuddled after, but she’d never seen him sleep. Not deeply. Not like this.
There was the time when he was recovering on the sofa up at the Lakes. But that hardly counted, given his broken sleep, her boys and Gavin slept in the same room, and she cared for them all.
She reached for the thermometer and took her temperature.
Normal.
Totally normal.
As though the past day hadn’t even happened.
“How are you feeling, sunshine?” Travis asked, his voice rough from sleep.
She turned to him. “Like I need to invest in a bell.”
He smiled. “Mama found the container of peach tarts and has convinced herself that she’s responsible for poisoning all of us.”
“But I didn’t eat one.” Rachel moved to sit up, and the room didn’t even spin. “Not after watching all of you deal with the aftermath. I put them in the fridge, but I didn’t eat any.”
Travis leaned on an elbow, reaching out with his other hand to push her hair behind her ear. “Let’s not tell Mama that part, yeah?”
Rachel laughed. “You’re being bad.”
“You have no idea how bad I can be.”
She wavered a little as she stood to make her way to a shower and then some dry toast. “I think I have a pretty good idea.” She rolled her tongue over her bottom lip before saying, “When I don’t feel like I just rose from the dead, do you…uh…want to look for a toothbrush with me?”
