After round two where Finn had taken Willow nice and slow, trying to show her in every kiss, every roll of his hips how much he still loved her, he walked her to her house, their fingers linked between them. It’d been a long damn time since he’d done something as simple as holding hands—in fact, the last time had probably been with Willow.
Considering how much they’d shared in the tree house, it was no wonder they walked the path in silence until they got to her front porch, the soft glow of the outside light illuminating her face.
“Thank you,” she said, her finger hooked in his belt loop. “For tonight.”
“Anytime.” He curled his fingers around her nape, brushing his thumb along her jaw as he pulled her in for a kiss. Their lips met with a spark, that always-evident chemistry between them coming to life as he slid his tongue along hers, pulled her body tight against him.
Jesus, how could he be ready to go again? This girl drove him absolutely fucking crazy in the best possible ways.
Panting, she broke away and dropped her forehead to his chest, her hands resting on either side, his shirt clutched in her fists. Well, one thing was for certain—she was just as affected as he was.
“You should go inside before I take you right here on the porch for anyone to see.” He ran his hands down the length of her back as her laugh puffed against his T-shirt.
“I know I should be scandalized by that, but is it bad that I’m actually considering it?”
He groaned, fisting her tank top at the small of her back and tugging her against him. Letting her feel how hard he was for her. “That’s just cruel, woman. Don’t tease a man in this state.”
She laughed, a tinkling sound, and looked up at him just as the front door swung open. Mac stood on the other side, mouth hanging open, eyes pinging back and forth between her sister and him.
“What the hell?”
Finn’s lips quirked up at the corner. “Hey, Mac. Havin’ a good night?”
“I… Um…” She narrowed her eyes before settling them on Willow and giving her what could only be interpreted as a “we’ll talk later” look. Then she walked away, leaving the door wide open.
So much for the whole against-the-house scenario.
“Seems y’all have some talkin’ to do, so I’ll leave you to it.” He pulled Willow close, pressing a soft, chaste kiss on her lips. Against them, he whispered, “’Night, Willowtree. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He walked backward, their fingers clasped between them until he couldn’t hold on any longer, and then he turned and strolled toward his truck near the front of the property. Leaving was the last thing he wanted to do. Hell, if he had it his way, she’d invite him into her home, into her room, into her bed. He’d spend the night with her, wake her up in the middle of the night with his lips on her, spend an hour inside her, then wake for the day with her in his arms. Pure heaven. Something they’d never had the luxury of doing, but something he wanted to experience almost as much as he wanted his next breath.
Someday. Someday, she’d trust him with that. Maybe. Hopefully. Especially after what they’d talked about tonight. Someday—maybe even sooner rather than later—they’d get to be a couple like that. He could stay at her place, or she could stay at his. They’d wake up, head down to the square, and grab breakfast at the diner. Everyone would look, of course. But she and Finn wouldn’t care. Hell, he’d be damn glad for all the gawking, because it’d mean Willow was his girl for the entire town to see.
So lost in his thoughts, he didn’t realize he wasn’t alone until he nearly tripped over Willow’s daddy. Dick stood off to the side, rage written all over his face. And, shit, wasn’t this just history repeating itself? The last time Finn had made this trek, Dick had stopped him then too. Face as pissed as it was now, spitting fire and threats.
Difference was, Finn was no longer that scared, nineteen-year-old kid with a sick momma and not a whole lot of hope for the future. Now? Now, he had that hope in spades.
“Evenin’, Dick. What can I do for you?”
“What can you do for me? You can tell me what the hell you’re doin’ on my property before I call the sheriff to haul your ass off for trespassin’.”
Finn cocked his head. A voice whispered that he shouldn’t taunt the man, shouldn’t rub what he’d been doing in his face. But pride was a bitch sometimes, and the satisfaction of pissing him off was too good to pass up. “Been a while, but I think you’ll probably remember if you try hard enough.”
Dick delivered the reaction Finn had wanted, his face reddening, hands curled into fists at his sides. Finn could practically see the smoke emanating from the older man’s ears, and he couldn’t say he was even a bit sorry about it. While Finn wouldn’t go back and change the events that’d led to him leaving—because without them, his momma may not…probably wouldn’t…have been with them now—but he couldn’t help hating Dick for tearing him and Willow apart. For not even allowing him to tell her goodbye.
“I don’t know what you’re up to here,” Dick said, “but you best finish what you came for and leave. Before I make you. You remember how that goes, don’t you, boy?”
Boy? Finn hadn’t been a boy in a long damn time—since well before he’d left in the first place. He laughed, a loud booming sound in the otherwise quiet night. “Guess you haven’t heard the news.”
“What news?”
Oh, this was going to make his whole year. Watching Dick’s face as Finn delivered the information that would ruin his precious little town—at least, in his eyes. “We’re stayin’.”
“You’re what?”
“C’mon now, Dick, I know you heard me. Despite you trying your damnedest to run us out with all that red tape nonsense and bullshit regulations, we’re not goin’ anywhere. We’re making Havenbrook home again.”
“You…you can’t do that.”
“Can and will. Drew and I are making one last trip to California to get packed up and bring Momma back with us.”
“No one here wants your kind in Havenbrook.” He spat the words like they were weapons.
Finn stared at the older man, waiting for the shame to come. But it never did. He knew his worth now, knew it didn’t rest solely on where he lived or what part of town he was from, or whether or not his daddy was in the picture. Knew it stemmed only from the kind of man he was. “Once upon a time, that might’ve hurt me, but I’m not a kid anymore, and preying on what you perceive as weaknesses isn’t going to do jack shit. I’m not quite as easy to get rid of as I was back then.”
“You think giving you fifty-thousand dollars to get the hell out was easy? How much’ll it take this time? Seventy-five? A hundred?”
Anger mixed with regret swirled in his gut. Dick knew damn well the money hadn’t been why Finn had left—it’d been the threat of what would’ve happened if he’d stayed. If he’d gotten hauled off to jail, there would’ve been no way Drew could’ve taken care of things with their momma. And Dick had known it, had used it to his advantage, like the prick he was.
Finn had no idea why he’d tried to protect Willow from this man, tried to salvage their relationship. The man was an asshole, and it was about damn time his daughter realized that.
Finn stepped up until he was toe-to-toe with him, getting some pleasure in the fact that Dick had to tilt his head back to look Finn in the eyes. “You could promise me a million—hell, a billion—and it still wouldn’t do jack. Try to come up with some more bullshit charges for me. See what blackmailing me does. It would make my fucking year to go down that path with you. I’m stayin’, Dick. And there’s nothin’ you can do to stop me.”
With that, he turned and walked away, his head held higher than it had been so many years ago. But just like all those years ago, his stomach churned. Dick wouldn’t give up. Wouldn’t stop until he’d gotten his way, or he had something else to focus his efforts on. Seeing as how Havenbrook was about as hopping as Mayberry, there wasn’t much else for him to focus on. And seeing as Finn wasn’t going anywhere… Well, it was going to be a long rest of his life.
But one that was worth it a thousand times over if it meant he got to spend that life with Willow.
BY THE TIME Finn got home, his anger had dissipated some. Not much, but some. Instead of focusing on what a piece of shit human being Dick was, Finn’d thought about what his next steps needed to be.
The money, for one thing. The money Dick had paid him off with to “ensure he didn’t have any reason to float back to Havenbrook” needed to be given back. Despite the circumstances surrounding it, Finn couldn’t deny what a lifeline the money had been, a tiny bit of light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.
It’d been just the three of them for as long as he could remember, their daddy having never been in the picture at all. And Momma had been sick. Fucking cancer. Working four part-time jobs—the only things that’d been available in a small town like Havenbrook—meant no health insurance. No relief from the mounds of bills sure to pile up—the prescriptions and the treatments and the office visits. At nineteen, he and Drew had had to discuss things with their momma a child never should, debating between bankruptcy or her death.
The shadows on his momma’s face, the resignation in her voice when she’d told them she hadn’t wanted her sickness to follow them even after she was gone still haunted him to this day. He’d hated that that’d been the hand they’d been dealt, that they’d never been able to get a leg up, no matter what they’d done. Even knowing how desperately they needed they money, he’d turned Dick down flat when he’d approached Finn in the first place. Back then, he’d thought that would be that.
But, of course, Dick always got what he wanted. And he’d wanted Finn gone.
Finn walked through the empty bar, the workers long since gone for the day. Pride swelled in his chest over what he, Drew, and Nola had accomplished—three troublemakers from the wrong side of the tracks. The opening was close now. Real close.
The bar top shone, the stone they’d picked out for the front a perfect contrast to the corrugated steel and barn wood throughout the space. Accent walls in that same stone were interspersed throughout the bar—a strategy Rory had come up with and he’d just nodded along to. Industrial lighting hung from the open rafters of the ceiling, a few lantern sconces—and yeah, he now knew what those were—on the walls. It was everything he’d imagined when he hadn’t even known what to dream up. There was no denying Rory knew what the hell she was doing, and she was damn good at it.
He climbed the stairs to the apartment before unlocking the door. Drew sat on the couch, TV on and beer in his hand. He lifted the bottle in a wave without turning around.
“We need to talk.” Finn tossed his keys on the beat-up card table posing as a dining table and strode into the living area.
Drew furrowed his brow as he looked at his brother. “What the hell happened tonight? It didn’t go well?”
“With Willow? Nah, it went great. Perfect.”
“Then what’s all this?” He gestured in Finn’s general vicinity.
Finn didn’t take time to wonder how Drew already knew something was up. Par for the course with the two of them. “History repeated itself tonight.”
Drew’s brows shot up. “No shit? Dick?”
“The one and only.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his spread knees. “What’d he say?”
“The usual. How much money’ll it take to make you leave, get out before I make you, that sort of thing.”
“I see his originality is still horseshit.”
Finn hummed as he collapsed onto the couch next to his brother. Originality Dick didn’t have, but he did have something he could hold over Finn’s head, and Finn wanted it gone. It’d always be there, of course. He could never take back what he’d accepted, but he wanted to wash his hands of it as best he could. “We still have that fifty-thousand set aside?”
Drew took a slow sip of his beer, then nodded. “Yeah.”
“I need it.”
“All right.”
No hesitation. No questioning. No inquisition.
“That’s it?”
Drew glanced at him. “Should there be somethin’ else?”
“You’re not gonna ask what I need it for?”
He tapped his temple. “Twins. Besides, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you’re lookin’ to pay back that slimy asshole so it’s not hangin’ over your head anymore. Been wonderin’ what was takin’ you so damn long, to be honest.”
Finn blew out a harsh breath, head resting on the back of the couch. “You remember after we left, how I’d fantasize about comin’ back here and all the ways I’d throw that money in his face?” He didn’t wait for a response because, of course, his brother remembered. “But when I finally got the chance, it just…wasn’t as important. I had other things on my mind.”
“Willow.”
“Yeah, Willow. And the bar. And talkin’ you into movin’ back here.”
“Didn’t have to do much coercin’ on that.”
“Don’t usually with you.”
Drew shrugged. “Nothin’ holdin’ me back in California. And where you go, I go. You know that.”
“I do.” Same as Drew knew it. Their bond was unbreakable.
Finn pushed to stand and strolled toward his bedroom. “When can you get the money?”
“It’ll take a couple days. Our bank doesn’t have a location ’round here, so I’ll have to make some calls. By the end of the week, I’d say.”
“All right. And we’ll still be doing okay once that’s gone?” Finn leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed. “We still have enough assets to pay all of Nash’s people for the bar and get Momma moved out here? I know we’ve run into some added expenses with this venture.”
Drew barked out a laugh then downed the rest of his beer before standing. On his way to the kitchen, he stopped and clapped a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “I know you don’t pay much attention to the statements I send you, but trust me when I say we’re doin’ just fine. That 50K was nice to get us started, but we haven’t needed it in a long damn time.”
Because Drew had made sure of it. Fifty-thousand was a lot of money, especially to two kids like them, but it wouldn’t have even put a dent in cancer treatment bills. They’d had to make more money and make it fast. Fortunately, his brother was a goddamn genius with the stock market. All they’d needed had been the starting capital, and pretty soon, they’d had a nice little nest egg, even after paying for their momma’s ungodly high treatment bills.
If it hadn’t been for Drew, they’d have ended up no better than they’d left Havenbrook. And Finn couldn’t lie that it was a damn nice feeling to know how much they’d changed since leaving, how much they’d flourished, despite what half the people in their hometown thought of them.
That was the one and only thing he’d thank Dick for. And he would too. At the same time he threw all that money back in his face.