CHAPTER TWELVE
SHE HAD LOST her mind. It was official. When Finn had showed up at her door radiating all the male energy that she was working so hard to pretend he didn’t have, she had gone into fright mode. She had done what she did best. She pushed things down; she hid them. She pretended that they weren’t happening to her.
That was the way she handled things. The Lane Jensen method of dealing with trauma. Just pretend there was no trauma. Tell no one. Not even yourself.
So, she had plastered a grin on her face and proceeded to act like he hadn’t devoured her last night and demolished the walls that she had placed very purposefully between them from the moment they had met.
Unsurprisingly, that hadn’t gone over very well.
Surprisingly, she was kissing him.
More surprising was the fact that once his lips had touched hers, common sense and any capacity for thought had flown completely from her mind.
She moved her hands down to his belt, rested them there for a moment, and then let her fingertips inch just beneath his shirt. She gasped when her skin met his. When she felt all of that hard, hot muscle beneath her hands at last.
At last. What a strange way to think of it. A strange way to think of something that she had never really thought about doing until this moment.
She had never touched a stomach like his. So well defined, and covered with just the right amount of hair. She knew what he looked like without a shirt. She had just seen him without one. And—he was right—she had checked him out. Fully and completely. She had memorized each ridge of muscle, and so now as her hands drifted over them, she had a pretty clear visual to go along with it.
Part of her was screaming that this was a mistake. But most of her was just lost in the best kiss she had ever experienced in her entire life.
His hands were so firm and sure on her body, so large and strong. The funny thing was, now that she had accepted they were kissing, she could appreciate the kiss they’d shared yesterday. The fact that he hadn’t been tentative. The fact that he hadn’t asked permission. The fact it had been a claiming rather than an interview.
No tentative meeting of lips that was tantamount to an awkward handshake. Not for Finn Donnelly. No, he kissed like a master. Like a man who knew exactly what he was doing, and exactly how to make a woman’s body do just what he wanted it to do. Feel just what he wanted it to feel.
Never, ever had she kissed a man with this kind of skill. Who knew just how to call this level of arousal up in her body this easily. He wasn’t even really touching her intimately. His palms were resting on her denim-covered butt, but that was it.
Meanwhile, she ached. From her breasts down to her toes, and everywhere in between. She could feel herself getting wet for him, wanting him.
Wanting Finn.
That thought, much like the growl that had rescued her sanity last night, jerked her into the moment. Into reality. She wrenched her mouth away from his. “No way,” she said, wiggling out of his hold. “Stop,” she said, more to herself than to him. “This has to stop.”
“You want me,” he said, the words tortured.
She held her hand up, her entire body trembling. With need, both to keep going and to get as far away from him as she possibly could.
“No,” she said. “I was perfectly happy to leave everything the way it was, Finn. You’re the one that’s having a breakdown, or whatever the hell this is.”
“This isn’t a breakdown. Trust me. None of this is new to me.”
“Don’t tell me that,” she said, clutching her head. “I trust you. I need you. You’re my... Everything. I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t deal with it ever. I’ve had you in my house. I’ve considered you my closest friend, and knowing that you were looking at me, knowing that you wanted to do this... That’s a betrayal, Finn.”
Maybe she was being a little bit dramatic. Maybe spitting these kinds of invectives at the one person she cared about more than just about anyone else wasn’t going to go very far in fixing this broken thing between them. But she couldn’t stop herself. This new thing exploding between them hurt her. It scared her. She wanted him to be hurt and scared too.
“I never betrayed you, Lane,” he said, his voice rough. “I have done nothing but be there for you. I never asked you for a damn thing you didn’t want to give. Not even when I wanted more. Don’t talk to me about betrayal. Don’t look at me like you’re shocked, like you’re hurt. You’re just in denial. You have been for a decade.”
Rage spiked in her, and she forgot for a moment. All about self-protection, all about hiding. She forgot about everything but her anger. Everything but her hurt.
“I am entitled to my fucking denial!” she shouted, not caring when her voice broke, splintered. “This isn’t what I need. You, like this, aren’t what I need.”
“And what I need doesn’t matter?”
“If you want sex go down to Ace’s and announce that you’re looking to fill the vacancy in your bed. You’ll find somebody. But it’s not going to be me. It can’t be me.”
“Why not?”
How could she tell him? How could she describe this feeling? Like she was slowly sliding down a hill, and then the ground beneath had given way. A landslide, carrying her all the way down to God knew where, threatening to swallow her completely. To bury her.
She felt like her rock, her safe place had been stolen from her. By the one person she had trusted more than anyone else.
She wanted to hit him. Wanted to make him pay for this. To hurt him the way he had hurt her. Somewhere, down at the bottom of all this blind rage, she had to admit—at least to herself—that he hadn’t done anything to her. Sure, he had kissed her, but a kiss was only a kiss. And if there was no heat between them it wouldn’t matter.
It was the heat that scared her.
Because she needed him to be Finn. Finn Donnelly, the man she had always known, the man she had taken emotional shelter with for the past ten years. She needed him to be that dependable, reliable rock he had always been for her.
She was suddenly awash in the unfairness of it. All of it. The fact that she expected him to continue being exactly what she needed and nothing more. Nothing less. The fact that he didn’t want to be, and she wanted to be entirely selfish and tell him to just stop being attracted to her then.
She didn’t want to care about what he felt. About what he wanted. Because she needed him to be hers. Hers in the way that he had always been.
That way that had allowed her to hide.
“Because it can’t be me,” she said finally, knowing that she sounded both desperate and scared, and wishing she could sound a little angrier. At least then he might take a step back. Instead of just standing there, maddening and immovable in all the wrong ways.
“I need better than that,” he said. “You owe me a real explanation.”
“Okay, it never works for friends to just have sex.”
“Why not? It’s worked for us to not have sex this long. Might as well change it up.”
“You’re being ridiculous. And obtuse. You know perfectly well that there’s just no point to it. That it’s going to ruin what we have. You probably already ruined it.”
Saying those words terrified her. Made her want to run to her room and close the door, lock it behind her. Hide from him. Hide from her racing heart, the ache that still persisted between her thighs, and from her traitorous hands that still itched to touch his muscles.
“I’m not having this conversation,” she said finally, turning away from him.
“If we can’t have this conversation, what’s the point in us talking at all?”
She turned around again, the finality in his words sending a streak of horror through her. “If you don’t get your way you’re not going to talk to me anymore?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we need to be able to talk honestly. You don’t have to do anything, Lane. But you do have to talk to me. What the hell is this friendship if we’re just pretending?”
For some reason, an image came to mind. Of her in bed, wrapped tightly in blankets, with Finn trying to take them off her. It would have been funny if it didn’t feel quite so desperate. If she didn’t feel quite so frantic in her need to cling to them. To that warm, comfortable cocoon that she had wrapped herself in ten years ago when she had first crossed the border into Copper Ridge.
It was all ruined now. All of it. Because of Cord McCaffrey. Because of Finn Donnelly and his new insistence that they kiss. Because of her body really liking the way that he kissed.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” she said.
“I’ve been there for you. And I haven’t asked much from you. But I want you, Lane, and I’m tired of pretending that I don’t.”
When he put it like that, it didn’t seem quite so horrible. It seemed almost reasonable. Except no, part of her fought back, it was unreasonable. Because yes, his grandfather had died, and yes, he was fighting to keep control of the ranch, but she was fighting an entirely different kind of pain. A different enemy.
And he didn’t even know. Not really. He didn’t know why he meant the world to her. Why this place, and the safety that she found in their friendship was so important.
“I can’t,” she said. “Because I need a friend. You’re my friend. You don’t know what it was like when I came here. What I was running from. And that isn’t by accident. But it’s followed me here now.”
Finn stiffened. “What’s going on? Are you in danger? Is there somebody coming after you?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s not like that. It’s just... It’s complicated. You think you know me. You think you know who I am. I guess maybe you even think we’ve exhausted everything there is to our friendship. And that’s why now you want to kiss me, and sleep with me. Because you think that’s the only mystery left. Well, there’s more.”
“That’s not it,” he said, his voice rough. “That’s not what’s happening here. It isn’t like I think I’ve uncovered everything worthwhile and now I figure I might as well move on to your breasts.”
Dimly, she realized that had it been any other circumstance she would have laughed. But there was no laughing now. She was going to tell him. The moment she realized it, was the moment she realized she couldn’t turn back.
“I can make it so you don’t want me,” she said, forcing a smile because the alternative was crying.
He did laugh, the sound jagged, cutting into her, deep. “If you could do that, Lane, I would be grateful to you. Because I have spent a hell of a long time trying to make myself not want you. Or lost myself in alcohol, in other women, in the ranch. I reminded myself every time I looked at you that you were Mark’s sister. And I’ve tried to make myself see his face whenever I look at yours. I’ve reminded myself over and over again that you deserve a man who’s going to love you forever, a man who’s going to marry you, and I’m not that man. I don’t know the first thing about commitment or love, and what I have seen of it, I didn’t care for. I’m just a man who wants inside you. And you’re a woman who deserves a lot more. None of that works. So, if you have the magic key, I’ll take it. Go ahead.”
It made her feel a little bit hysterical, borderline giddy. “You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Not even Mark knows this. If you were wondering why he never told you the reason I don’t talk to my parents, it’s because he doesn’t know either.” Terror clutched at her chest, making it feel like there was a stone lodged in her throat. Her body’s last-ditch effort to keep her secret, she supposed. She had done it for so long, it felt like part of her survival. Even though that was ridiculous. Even though she knew better. She tilted her head back, closing her eyes. “I had a baby, Finn. And I gave him away.”
The silence that followed the admission was almost unbearable. He said nothing; he didn’t move. His face seemed frozen, and she was pretty sure her body was frozen right along with it. She didn’t know what else to say. She had no idea how to tell the story, because she never had.
There was never a need to have this discussion with any of the men she had dated because she had known those relationships would only last a few months anyway. She had never told her friends because she didn’t want them to look at her and think of it every time she walked into a room.
But most of all, she had never told anyone here in Copper Ridge because she had left home for a reason. Because she had wanted to leave the past behind and not bring even one piece of it with her.
It had been nice, to put it away like that. To lock it down deep inside of her and to know that no one around her was ever thinking about it. To know that nobody looked at her and thought: she’s that sad girl who got pregnant at sixteen.
She had been given a chance to rewrite her story, and she had taken it.
And with just a few words she had blown all of that to hell.
She waited for him to say something. To ask if she was kidding. To say something judgmental. To say something supportive. Just something. Anything to give her an indication of what he was thinking before she continued on.
He didn’t.
He was waiting. Waiting for her to finish.
It enraged her. To know that he wasn’t going to fall in line the way she wanted him to. To know that he was just outright refusing to be that stalwart inanimate object she depended on him to be.
Yet again, she was very conscious of Finn’s maleness. The way that he stood there, all hard-edged strength. So big and broad and just kind of looming near her. She was very aware of the safety net that had once existed between them, and the fact that it was no longer there.
If the kiss hadn’t changed things past the point of no return, then her bombshell certainly had. When his lips had touched hers he had altered the way she saw him forever. She had a feeling this admission had done the same for him.
“I was sixteen,” she said, pressing on. “He was my first boyfriend. We weren’t planning on having sex. You know, basically I’m an after school special. No condom, no forethought at all. I didn’t think... I didn’t think it would just happen. That we would go from kissing, to fumbling, to that. But we did.” She laughed, which was ridiculous, because nothing about this was funny. “And you can most definitely get pregnant the first time, Finn. If you were wondering. That’s why you should always wear a condom.”
He still didn’t say anything. He was just looking at her, that same granite expression affixed to his face. It made her want to... Something. Punch him. Maybe kiss him. Except she wasn’t going to do that again.
“Anyway. He was one of those boys with a future. And it was really important. More important than a baby.” She blinked, and her eyes suddenly felt scratchy. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel when she talked about this. About her son.
Suddenly, she couldn’t stand up anymore. She braced her hand on the wall and went down on her knees. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t think those words. Ever. She didn’t talk about this. Ever ever.
Then, the mountain moved.
He was down in front of her all of a sudden, his thumb and forefinger pinching her chin, tipping her face up so that she had to look at him. “Can you breathe?”
She shook her head.
“You’re going to have to breathe, Lane,” he said. “I need you to. Because you need to.”
She didn’t want to. She wanted to turn away from him, curl up into a ball, her knees up tight against her neck, and block all of this out. Give in to the building, mounting pressure in her chest. Maybe howl a little bit to try and relieve it.
He wasn’t letting her, damn him. He wasn’t letting her fold in on herself. What good was he? He wouldn’t stand there and be an immovable shelter for her, and he wouldn’t let her crumble either.
“I didn’t rehearse this,” she heard herself mumble. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I was never going to tell anybody. That’s the point of adoption, isn’t it? You give them a better life, and you go on with yours. And it isn’t easy, but the point is that it’s better for everybody.” She took a sharp breath. “It’s supposed to be better.”
It was. She knew that it was. At sixteen she had not been ready to be a mother. Particularly without parental support, or support from Cord. There would’ve been nothing she could have done. She would have come to Copper Ridge with the baby; she would have had to live with her brother. She would have had to find babysitting while she waited tables. Every difficult thing about breaking away and making a life for herself would have only been made that much more difficult.
Even if they hadn’t pressured her into doing it. Even if everyone would’ve just taken a step back and given her the opportunity to make her own choice, she was pretty sure she would have done it the same way.
But it was the pretty sure that got her. The pretty sure that was part of the problem.
That would always eat at her. That would always make her wonder.
She looked up at Finn, at the expression on his face, and she knew that she had accomplished at least part of what she had set out to do. She had driven a wedge between them. Except, it was more than she had wanted. Different than she had wanted. He was looking down at her like he was seeing her for the first time.
She was angry then. Because she could feel it. The intense betrayal that was rocketing through him over this. Over the fact that he didn’t know this about her. This foundational, deep thing that had brought her here to Copper Ridge and had made her who she was.
It was her life, her secret to tell or not. He didn’t have the right to be mad. And it sucked that she understood why he was.
“I didn’t see the point of bringing the story here,” she said. “But that’s been the problem. He... The boy I was involved with had a future. And he really made the most of it. And here I am, and I own this little shop. And suddenly, it just didn’t seem like enough. Because if I gave up my son... My son, Finn. Then I should have done something really amazing. I didn’t. I’m not. He did. They were right about him. He gets to stand up there with his two perfect kids. And every time I see them I wonder... I wonder if my son looks like those kids. If that’s what he looks like now that he’s older. He’s almost twelve. And I can’t forget that. I know it. I know his birthday. And every year I wonder all these things. I wonder what his favorite cake is and if he got a bike.” She was rambling. The worst kind of ramble.
Emotional. Teary. It wasn’t about French fries or pumice stones, but she still couldn’t stop it. It was like all of these words had been stuffed down deep inside of her for years, and now that she had started, she couldn’t stop them.
“I hate the father so much sometimes,” she said. “But at the same time if he hadn’t done well, I’d hate him even more. And if the story about the baby ever came out it would ruin him, and then there really wouldn’t have been a point.”
“I don’t know the whole story,” Finn said, his tone gentle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Senator Cord McCaffrey,” she said, her voice muted.
Finn’s brows shot up. “Really?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, well. He wasn’t a senator then. He was a high school senior with a really nice car. And we lived in the same neighborhood, in these ridiculous manor houses that have servants’ entrances.”
“I mean, I knew your family was rich. From what Mark had said.”
“He undersells it. Trust me. Because until you see it firsthand, you don’t know. It’s all that Mayflower Society blue blood First Family kind of stuff. I hate it. I hate all of it.” A tear slid down her cheek and she dashed it away. “I’ve had an entire life ripped out from under me. And I’ve lost... I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I’ve lost. Because I gave it up before I had a chance to find out. So I ran. As hard as I could, as far as I could. But now, Cord is on TV everywhere. And I have to look at him. And I have to look at myself, and the life that I have, and I can’t feel anything but completely underaccomplished.”
“Does this have anything to do with the subscription boxes?”
And just like that, she felt understood again. Just like that, the gulf seemed to be bridged. She felt like maybe she wasn’t so much of a stranger to him. Not when he understood that so quickly, so easily.
“It might have everything to do with the subscription boxes,” she said, her voice sounding small. “But you know, everyone was obsessed with his promise. Even then, he was being groomed for politics. I suppose they thought that I could have been a decent senator’s wife. But there was no way either of us could have fit into those roles if we had a kid when we were teenagers.”
She took a deep breath, trying to fill some of the emptiness inside of her. There was no point feeling that way now. No point being full of regret.
It didn’t mean that she wasn’t either of those things. Empty and full, happy with her life and sometimes unfulfilled. Saddened by thoughts of what could have been, relieved that she hadn’t put either herself or her child through the struggle.
A little bit ashamed when she saw other people thriving under the circumstances she had sought to avoid. Relieved sometimes too. Especially when she saw someone with a screaming child and a hollowed-out, exhausted look in her eyes.
But guilt. Always guilt. On both sides of the seemingly opposite feelings.
“I feel like he took that second chance,” she said slowly. “That opportunity to try things differently, to start things over and he made everything of himself his parents hoped he would. I didn’t.”
“You haven’t done anything to be ashamed of,” Finn said. “You’re successful. You have a business. People here in town love you.”
She laughed. “Did I go to Harvard, Finn? Am I terribly important, or the wife of somebody who is? I was supposed to get a great education, so I could either move in prestigious circles, or marry someone who did, while I sat at home with my very important degree being smug in its existence. No. I am none of those things. I have none of those things. Dammit. I could have subscription boxes.”
She wiped the tears from her cheeks, feeling fortified if not completely stable. She wouldn’t crumble in the next few minutes anyway.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I...yeah.”
“Do you want to get off the floor now?”
He moved his hand to her shoulder, let his fingertips drift down to her elbow. And in spite of all the turmoil inside of her, she felt something else too. Something hot and restless and exactly the sort of thing she was trying to banish with her revelation.
His question felt weighted too. Like there was another level to what he was asking, another layer. As if he was pointing out that she had been on the floor for the past decade, and maybe she should stand up.
That wasn’t true, though. She hadn’t been on the floor. She had come to Copper Ridge, and she had made a new life for herself. She had separated herself from her past and she had moved forward. And yes, she had kept the details of that to herself, and yes, there was some pain that lingered. But she wasn’t on the floor. Not metaphorically, anyway. Physically was another story.
“Okay,” she said, and tried not to feel anything momentous when he moved his hand to hers and laced his fingers through her own. Tried not to ascribe any other meaning to the action when he lifted her to her feet, his eyes level with hers.
He was just helping her up off the floor. That was all.
“Are you going to be okay?”
It was a strange question. This was something she had lived with for a long time now. So it wasn’t exactly a new pain to her. But it was new to him.
“I’m always okay,” she responded, which was about the most disingenuous answer she could have given, all things considered. Clearly, she was something less than okay or she wouldn’t have just had an extended meltdown all over him.
“I think,” she continued, her words trembling a little bit. “I think I need some time by myself, though.”
And she felt... Well, she felt pretty crappy saying that to him. She was the one who had chosen to bring it up, and doing so had been a strange experience. Kind of out-of-body. She had been worried it would drive a wedge between them, and in some ways, in the moment, she’d hoped it might. Then it hadn’t. He had just stood there as steady as ever, and then he had offered her his hand.
So now she was pushing him away, since he didn’t let her bombshell drive him off. Now she felt like she might be a little bit manipulative.
She didn’t like that thought. But she couldn’t stop her mind from going there.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. “If Mark asks... What do you want me to say to him?”
“Nothing has changed,” she said, parroting the thoughts she had earlier. “I mean, not for me. If I seem off it’s just because I’ve been having to think about all of this a whole lot more lately. Usually, it’s pretty easy to let it stay in the past.” She sucked in a fortifying breath. “It’s a lot harder when you have to look at that guy all the time. But I’m fine. It’s new news to you. It’s not new to me.”
Even those words tasted disingenuous on her tongue, and she couldn’t quite work out why. Or maybe the truth was she threw a wall in the way of figuring out why the minute she got close.
She had the sense—all of a sudden—that the inside of her was made entirely of a series of walls and locked doors. Designed to keep certain things, certain moments, certain people in different places so that they never touched.
She felt both desperately in need of them and desperately constrained by them all at once.
“You want me to tell him you’re fine,” Finn said. “You want me to lie to him.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Tell him I’m dealing with a bad breakup. That’s true. Even if it is twelve years in the past.”
“Fine. If that’s what you want.” He looked at her again, something strange in his eyes. Something she didn’t want to name. “I am going to call you tomorrow.”
It felt like a promise, one that she kind of wished he wouldn’t keep. She had a feeling he knew that too, which was why he made it with such a grave look in his eye.
“Great,” she said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She plastered what had to be the world’s most brittle smile on her face and took a step back from him. Just in case he was going to touch her again. She really needed him to not touch her again.
“Okay,” he said, gripping the end of his hat and tipping it forward—a reflex, one he usually reserved for strangers, and definitely not for her.
That made her want to reach out and grab him by the shoulders. Shake him and ask him why he was being weird. Why he couldn’t just be her friend. Why there had to be tension, and analysis of every movement and reaction.
And after that, she wanted to shake herself. For being so contradictory. For trying to widen the space between them, and then being angry when she had accomplished it.
Except, it had seemed for a moment like things weren’t different between them. Like he was her rock again. Her stalwart. Her Finn. Like somehow she had reset things between them with her revelation.
But then he’d tipped his hat.
While she was still standing there ruminating, he walked out of her house. On autopilot, she locked the door behind him. Then she turned and went down the hall and fell face-forward onto her bed. She was fully dressed, but she didn’t care.
She was still wearing her makeup, but she didn’t care about that either.
Instead of getting up and getting ready for bed, she gave in to that urge that had overtaken her earlier. She drew her knees up to her chest and curled into the tightest ball she could manage.
Then, she gave herself fully to her misery.