Chapter 34
Vivienne was glowing as they drove back into town, and Rhys had trouble keeping his eyes on the road and not on her.
“It was just like . . . like there was a river inside me, only the river was magic, and I could feel it, actually feel it as it left my hands, like whoosh,” she enthused, gesturing with both hands, her cheeks pink, her eyes bright, and Rhys laughed.
“So you’ve said, cariad, so you’ve said.”
Dropping her hands, Vivienne grinned at him. “Sorry. I’m getting a little overexcited, aren’t I?”
“I mean, you saved an entire town and my life with your magic,” he reminded her. “You’re allowed.”
Tipping her head back against the seat, Vivienne laughed again. “I did. I did that. I am a certified badass witch.”
“The baddest of asses,” Rhys agreed, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, “and also possibly a little Magic Drunk.”
“That is a distinct possibility, yes,” she agreed, and then smiled at him again, a smile Rhys felt warm every inch of him.
He was more than a little euphoric himself. Cheating death had that effect on a man, and even though he wasn’t sure how his father was going to take the news that Graves Glen was no longer Penhallow territory, he didn’t really care right now. That was a problem for Future Rhys, and surely that cheeky bugger would be able to work it out.
Vivi suddenly reached over, grabbing his arm.
“Pull over.”
Rhys eyed her suspiciously. “You’re not going to vomit, are you?”
“Ew, no,” she said, pulling a face, then pointing out the windshield. “Right there.”
Rhys followed her instructions, bringing the car to a stop on a dirt pull-in at the edge of a hillside, looking down into a valley. The moon was bright enough that he could just make out the field below them, the surrounding hills dark shapes against the navy-blue sky.
“This is where we met,” she said softly. “The summer solstice. Right down there in that field.”
Rhys had known that from the moment he’d parked the car. He remembered those hills, remembered sitting with her and looking up at them, remembered that flower crown that sat crooked on her hair, and her sweet smile.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked, her voice quiet, her mood a little more subdued.
“It’s not that you didn’t actually reverse the curse, and you’ve brought me here to kick me off this hillside, is it?”
She laughed, lower this time, her hair brushing her shoulders as she shook her head. “I loved that summer,” she said. “I held it up as this perfect, wonderful moment, and told myself it’s only because it was a first, you know? First magical rite I ever went to, first summer of college, first boy I ever fell in love with.”
When she turned to him, her eyes were filled with something Rhys couldn’t name, but whatever it was, it warmed his chest, his heart.
God, he loved her.
“But this time was even better,” she said, leaning in close. And then she smiled.
“May I kiss you?”
Rhys’s heart jerked almost painfully against his ribs. “Now?”
“I’m open to whatever your schedule allows.”
“Well, lucky for you, I am currently free as fuck,” he replied, and she laughed as he pulled her in, clambering over the seat so that she could straddle his lap.
It had been a while since Rhys had shagged someone in a car, but somehow, they managed, her dress pushed up to her waist, his fly undone, and they only hit the car horn twice.
And when he was inside her, her arms around him, her hair in his face, this gorgeous, magical woman he’d fallen in love with twice now, he knew he had to tell her how he felt.
After, he’d promised himself, and this was after.
But first, he wanted to feel her come apart around him, wanted to hear her make those soft little cries and feel her teeth nip his earlobe.
He did all of that and more, and when she lay panting against his chest, he pushed her hair back, kissing the sweaty skin of her neck.
“Vivienne,” he started, and she sighed, sinking even deeper against him.
“I’m going to miss you, Rhys,” she said, her voice soft and dreamy.
That’s when he understood what this was. Bringing him here to this place where they met, making love to him.
She was saying good-bye.
It was past midnight by the time they made it back up the mountain to Elaine’s, and as she and Rhys walked up the porch steps, fingers loosely clasped, Vivi nodded up at the sky. “Samhain is over. Officially All Souls Day now.”
“And I am officially uncursed, and you are officially the most impressive witch I know.”
Giggling, Vivi gave a little curtsy, still slightly high from magic and sex and some mystical combination of the two.
In fact, she thought, as they stopped in front of Elaine’s door, she could maybe go for a little more of both.
“Come inside?” she asked. “I don’t have much practice sneaking boys into my room here, but honestly, I don’t think Elaine would mind.”
Rhys smiled at that, but it was a brief one, and when he reached up to smooth her hair back from her face, Vivi felt like she knew what he was about to say.
“Much as I would love that, cariad, I’m afraid I need to get back tomorrow.”
Vivi rocked back slightly, her hands falling from his waist. “Back as in . . . to Wales?”
“The very place,” he said. “My father needs to be told about all this, and that’s really a conversation best had in person. And work will get busier with the holidays . . .”
Vivi felt like someone had dunked her in cold water, all that silly, magical happiness draining off her as she stood there on the porch, looking up into Rhys’s blue eyes.
“Right, of course,” she said, and made herself smile. “I mean, we both knew this was temporary. Your life there, mine here.”
“Exactly,” he said, and his smile seemed a little forced, too. “Of course,” he added, pulling her in, “I could beg you to come with me. Down on my knees, the whole bit, very dramatic, quite a scene.”
She laughed a little at that even as she closed her eyes against the sudden stinging of tears. “I would really like to see that.” And she would, was the thing. Wanted Rhys to seriously ask her to come, wanted to know what this meant to him.
But he’d showed her, hadn’t he? He cared about her, he always would. But he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who could stay in one place. He’d built a whole life around that.
And now that her magic was inextricably bound up in Graves Glen, she didn’t want to leave. This was her home.
“You do enjoy me down on my knees.”
Vivi closed the space between them, wrapping her arms around him, breathing in the smell of autumn that clung to his clothes, the faint scent of smoke still hanging around them both. “Truly where you do your best work.”
His grip on her tightened even as he chuckled, and Vivi wished they could put off this bit just for a little bit longer. Just let her have him a little longer, one more night, maybe two.
But that wouldn’t make this any easier. If anything, it would just make it harder. Because Rhys couldn’t stay.
And she couldn’t go.
“Look on the bright side,” she said, as she pulled back. “At least this time I won’t be cursing you. Might even set up a little mini–Rhys Penhallow shrine on my desk at work.”
“Canopy bed included, I hope.”
Vivi could feel the smile wobble on her face. She was making the right decision. They both were. This thing between them had always been built not to last. They were too different, wanted different lives, had different dreams.
That didn’t make letting him go any easier.
But she did.
“Good-bye, Rhys,” she said, brushing her lips against his one more time.
“Good-bye, Vivienne,” he murmured, but he didn’t kiss her again. He just turned and walked back down the porch steps and, for the second time, out of her life.