Page 48 of One Week With You
CHAPTER11
TALIA
The light had shiftedto the other side of the cottage and Rafe still wasn’t back. There was nothing more to clean and no messages to check so I decided to burn off my anxiety with exercise. Since jumping jacks hurt my boobs, I threw on my coat, two pairs of woollen socks and Rafe’s old Wellington boots and stomped outside to dig out the cars.
Every scrape and forceful shove into the snow was another unanswered question.
Why did he lie?
Was it just convenient sex?
Is he okay?
Am I overreacting?
By the time Rafe appeared, my hands were stiff and frozen, my muscles ached, and the driveway was framed with mounds of snow where I’d started clearing a car-wide path.
Anger and anxiety were amazing fuel, as it turned out.
“Talia!” Rafe called out, gingerly jogging up the drive. About halfway, he threw his arms out to steady himself when his boot caught on a patch of ice, but recovered pretty smoothly. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I gasped out between breaths. Worry melted to relief that he was okay, but I felt incredibly tired all of a sudden. I rubbed at the twinge blooming in my lower back and winced at the pops and clicks as my spine realigned after being hunched over for so long.
“Give me that,” he said, motioning at the shovel. “You’ve done enough. The rest can wait.”
“I’m on a roll now.”
“You look like you’re about to pass out. It’s too cold for this.” He drifted closer and tugged my chin upwards. “For fuck’s sake, your lips are blue! Get inside.”
“I thought I told you not to tell me what to do.”
Rafe stilled, glancing around uncertainly. “What’s going on?”
“I’m trying to clear the drive and you’re getting in my way.”
His mouth tightened. “Enough. Get inside.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Well, I am. I’m too cold and tired for this temper tantrum, Talia. Inside. Now.”
“Excuse me?” Fuck the cold, my temperature surged to a million degrees. Even if he was right. Even if I was pushing the limits of bratty behaviour. I couldn’t help myself. “Temper tantrum?”
He tore the shovel from my hands and threw it over the wall where it landed with a thud in the front garden. “Get inside or I’m carrying you in there. Your choice.”
“Yeah, right. I’d like to see you try.”
His eyes flared.Shit. Rafe loved nothing more than a challenge.
“You asked for it,” he said, grabbing me around the waist and hoisting me over his shoulder.
I shrieked as the world tilted.
It took a fierce slap against my ass for me to remember how to use words.
“Put me down!”
“Nope.”
