Cecilia smiled at me. “She is very endearing, Joshua. There’s something about her. I feel like I’ve known her forever.” She looked at me quietly, her eyebrow furrowed in thought. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. “Have you both thought of the implications here, Joshua? Really thought about them?”
“We didn’t plan this, Cecilia. We have talked a great deal about it. But right now, she is here, she is safe and this is where she wants to be. As long as she wants that, this is where she is staying.”
She regarded me quietly. “You know you could be proactive, Joshua. I could take her back to Toronto with me and put the press on it. You could find out who she is pretty quickly.”
I stared at her in horror. I hadn’t even thought about that. Before I could speak up, Rabbit’s voice came from behind me.
“This is where I want to stay, Cecilia. I don’t want Joshua to be ‘proactive.’ If no one is looking for me then I’m not sure I want to go looking for them.”
Rabbit’s arms came around my shoulders and I leaned back into her soft warmth. “As long as Joshua wants me here, this is where I want to be.”
I lifted her hand and kissed it tenderly. “Always,” I murmured.
I looked over at Cecilia. “She’s staying.”
Cecilia shrugged. “Okay. Just making sure you guys had thought of all the options.”
I pulled Rabbit’s arms tightly around me.
“Subject closed, Cecilia.”
“Did you drive here, Cecilia?” Rabbit asked over lunch. She was still pale-looking from her headache and I knew it was still lingering.
Cecilia shook her head. “I don’t usually. The traffic is rather unpredictable on the 400 and sometimes it can take hours and hours. Joshua and my husband, Trevor, co-own a helicopter. I get flown to Gravenhurst from Toronto. I have a car I keep in town and drive out here usually.”
Rabbit looked at me. “You own a helicopter?”
I grinned at her. “Co-own. Trevor does a lot of business out of town and it made sense. He can make it home most nights to his wife. I can get Cecilia here fairly quickly and Trevor can use it to come and go when he needs to. Neither of us wants Cecilia driving that distance all the time. It was a sound investment.”
Cecilia spoke up. “Sometimes I drive, especially if I am helping Joshua with edits or doing a bunch of things for him and plan on spending longer than a day here. But usually, it’s the chopper.”
Rabbit wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a helicopter, but of course I can’t be sure. It must be an amazing view.”
I chuckled. “I’ll make sure you get a ride one day.”
Her smile was brilliant. “Thank you.”
Cecilia and I spent the afternoon going through the edits I had been working on. Rabbit went for a walk with Bear, then came in and lay down with another headache. When I checked on her, I found her curled into a ball, her face buried in the pillow. I could hear her soft sobs from the doorway. I went over and sat down beside her, pulling her into my arms. “Nightmare?” I asked quietly, as I stroked the damp hair away from her face. She nodded. “Tell me.”
“It’s just images,” she whispered. ”I keep seeing blue and feeling pain and I can’t get away from it. There are lights and flashes of swirling white and a sense of … being lost. Scared. There are loud angry voices. I can’t explain it.”
I was convinced she was seeing small glimpses of what happened to her. The images were so consistent now. I sat up, taking her with me. “You’re safe, Rabbit. No one will hurt you here.”
She nodded silently. “Is Cecilia staying the night?”
I shook my head. “No, she’ll head home soon. She is just finishing up a few things for me. She’ll be back soon enough with some more work for me. You’ll see lots of her.”
I stroked her cheeks, wiping away the dampness lingering there. “How about a nice soak in the tub and I’ll look after dinner. Cecilia brought some movies I wanted to see. You can pick one to watch and I’ll whip up one of my famous pizzas. They’re legendary. Sound good?”
She nuzzled her face into my chest, then looked up at me. An indulgent smile was on her face. “I saw the pre-made pizza she brought, Joshua.”
I grinned; pleased I could distract her and make her smile with my lameness. She knew that aside from grilling meat or scrambling eggs I wasn’t a very good cook. I waggled my eyebrows at her. “I’ll even crack open another bottle or two of wine, Rabbit, and let you tell me how sexy I am again.”
Her soft giggle made me smile even harder.
“I don’t need the wine to see how sexy you are. But the evening sounds perfect, Joshua.”
I kissed her, softly stroking my tongue on hers, but didn’t deepen it.
I stood up. “Okay, I’ll go get rid of Cecilia. I’ll tell her I have a hot date for the night and she needs to vamoose. She’s cramping my style.”
I grinned as Rabbit’s laughter followed me down the hall. I made her forget about her nightmare and laugh.
Mission accomplished.
Chapter Twenty-One
Joshua