CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING saw Finn doing the walk of shame up to his front door. Normally, there would be no one around to witness such an event, but this morning when he walked into his kitchen, hungover from sex and lack of sleep, he had three very attentive witnesses.
It would have been comical if he didn’t find it so annoying.
Liam, Alex and Cain were all sitting at the kitchen table, and paused with their coffee halfway between the table and their lips when Finn made his entrance.
“We were about to file a missing persons report,” Alex said, leaning back in his chair and slinging his arm across the back.
“We almost called search and rescue,” Liam added.
“I just went to sleep,” Cain said.
“Leave it to you assholes to be up early today without me to drag you out of bed.”
“Assholes are good for that,” Alex said. “By which I mean only doing the right thing when it might bother somebody.”
“Job well done,” Finn growled, walking across the room and making quick work of the remaining coffee in the pot.
“You disappeared last night before things got good,” Liam said.
“Somehow,” Alex said, “I doubt that. I have a feeling Finn went to a private party.”
“Are you guys twelve, or what? I’m a grown ass man. If I stay out all night I’m not going to blush and giggle about what went on.” He felt protective of what had happened between himself and Lane. They didn’t need to know the details, and they definitely didn’t need to know he’d been with her.
“I’d like to ruminate on it for a bit.” Alex smiled. “I would like to ruminate in detail. I was distracted when you left, so I didn’t get to see you go. But I want to know who you left with.”
“Excuse me while I change my earlier question. Are you women?”
Liam lifted his coffee mug. “That’s sort of sexist, Finn. I feel sullied by our association.”
“Feel free to make a sign and march in the streets then, jackass.”
“I think I’ll just finish drinking my coffee.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You might have responded to a text,” Liam said. “Just one. So that we knew you weren’t lying dead or mortally wounded somewhere.”
He hadn’t even checked his phone yet today. “And you care about that?”
He had meant the question to sound somewhat skeptical, but it came out legitimately curious.
Liam lifted a shoulder. “Who’d ride us hard during ranch chores and make us wish for death?”
“Great,” Cain said. “Finn got laid. That’s all we’re going to hear about it. Frankly, I don’t want to hear any more about it. I want to go milk some cows.”
“Do you want to talk about that, Cain?” Alex asked. “Because that’s kind of concerning.”
“Every so often I’m sorry you weren’t named Abel.”
“Wow.” Alex took another sip of his coffee.
“We really do need to get to work,” Cain said, the slight drawl he had that the rest of them didn’t a little more pronounced this morning. “I need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my teenager at some point today. I need to get her out of the house. She can’t just sit around until school starts in the fall. Mostly because neither of us will live through it.”
Cain drained his coffee and stood, heading toward the door. “See you out there.”
Finn had to admire—with grudging respect—the ease with which Cain had adapted to the ranch life. Granted, his older brother was used to this kind of setup, even if daily work had been a thing of the past.
It made it a lot harder to be bitter about his presence here.
The jury was still out on the other two.
“You were supposed to be our wingman,” Liam said.
“Dick move, abandoning us,” Alex said.
“That’s so strange,” Finn said, “because I don’t recall needing a wingman to get laid. If you do, maybe you need to up your game.”
“Probably easier when you know the woman you picked up,” Alex said, his tone overly innocent.
He shot his younger brother a deadly glare. “It’s not open for discussion.”
“Is anything in your life open for discussion, Finn?”
“That’s a very good question, Alex,” Finn said. “Which we can talk about after we discuss the details of your life, which you have so kindly laid out with transparency for all of us to see.”
“I was in the army. Now I’m not. Is there anything else you want to know?”
“Why aren’t you in the army anymore?”
Alex’s expression turned stony, serious, much more so than Finn was used to seeing. “I got tired of watching people I love die. How about that? Now you go.”
“Alex...” Liam turned to face his brother.
“Shit,” Finn said.
“No details necessary,” Alex returned. “It is what it is. War is hell, and all that clichéd shit. Dairy cows seem like a hell of a lot more fun than dodging explosions... What can I say. Plus, I have some responsibilities to take care of here.”
“What responsibilities? Related to the military stuff?” Finn asked.
“Like not your damn business,” Alex said.
“You have your stuff, I have mine,” Finn responded, before turning to Liam. “What about you? Do you want to tell me why Sabrina Leighton saw you sitting in Ace’s last night, and then turned around and ran out of the bar like she’d seen a ghost?”
Something in Liam’s expression shifted. “Not particularly.”
“No explanation at all?”
“Maybe I’m a ghost?”
He had a feeling Liam might be a ghost in Sabrina’s estimation. But he was less interested in the details of his brothers’ lives and hell of a lot more interested in getting them off his back.
“Here’s how I see it,” Finn said, not quite realizing this was how he saw it until he started talking. “You’re all pretty determined to stay here. That means we need to figure out how to exist together. We need to figure out what everyone’s function is going to be in the Donnelly Family Fun Time Hour. We’re dysfunctional as fuck. Have been for more than thirty years. I don’t think a few weeks together is going to fix that. Hell, it may take thirty years to fix that. But it doesn’t mean we can’t make this work.” He gritted his teeth against the instant denial that occurred inside of him.
The Laughing Irish was his. Letting go of that, admitting that maybe his brothers had a right to be here, that maybe he was just going to have to make it work with them here... It wasn’t easy. But it was reality.
And maybe it was just being here with them that made it all click into place. Or maybe it was Lane. Maybe having her, the way he’d always wanted, had released some of the tension inside him. Had made things a little clearer.
His grandfather hadn’t trusted him. Whatever Finn had given hadn’t been enough. Callum had felt the need to include the others in spite of all Finn’s work and dedication. And Finn just had to accept that.
Just like he’d accepted the fact that his mother had walked away with no interest at all in coming back. Just like he had accepted that Liam and Alex had made suitable replacements for Finn and his mother where their father was concerned.
Two days ago it would’ve seemed impossible to make this concession. But last night he had finally been with Lane. And with that weight shifted off his shoulders everything else seemed a little bit easier to carry.
“That’s kind of what we’ve been waiting for,” Liam said.
“No you haven’t. You’ve just been hanging around taking orders from me.”
Liam snorted. “No. I told you in the beginning that I thought that friend of yours had a good idea. And that I thought we should do it. We have more manpower now than we did before, and I have all the cash you could ever want to inject in this place.”
“Thanks. But I don’t need your money.”
“It’s we,” Liam said. “Not you. And seriously, I could outfit these cows with diamond-studded milking machines.”
“But that’s ridiculous, so you won’t,” Finn said.
“You say that like ridiculousness has ever stopped Liam from doing anything in the past,” Alex said.
“I don’t know him well enough to comment on that,” Finn said. Honest, but the moment the words left his mouth he realized how depressing they were.
“I have a feeling that’s all going to change,” Liam remarked. “Probably pretty quickly.”
And, in another testament to just how good things had been with Lane last night, that comment didn’t even make Finn feel angry. It didn’t bother him at all. If anything, it made him feel a little bit hopeful.
Later, he would see Lane and he would thank her properly. And he would have another talk with her about those subscription boxes.
* * *
FINN HAD TEXTED her earlier and asked her to come over after she closed up shop. She didn’t know why, but she felt nervous. Giddy. Well, okay, she knew why.
She sighed and set about taking all of the giant tin pans full of pasta out of the backseat of her car. She had been so worked up that she had spent the day scurrying between the front of the store and the back kitchen.
She had needed something to keep herself busy. Cooking had been it. The Donnelly brothers always seemed grateful for the extra food, and now that all of them lived here they went through it a lot faster than when it had just been Finn.
She liked it. Liked taking care of all of them. When it suited her, and not on a daily basis. That would probably be more than a little bit onerous. Immediately, she was forced to imagine herself as Snow White, except instead of taking care of seven little men, it was four very large men and a cranky teenager.
She steeled herself against the onslaught of tension she was certain was going to hit the moment she came face-to-face with Finn. She was not going to be able to look at him without thinking about his naked body. No, there was no way. In fact, she had spent the entire day with images of Finn’s naked body superimposed over whatever she was doing.
That never happened to her. She just wasn’t the kind of person who lost her mind over sex. It was fine. But it wasn’t all-consuming. Finn was becoming a little bit all-consuming.
That was actually good, she reasoned, as she walked up the stairs to the front door of the Donnelly family home. She could use something that was all-consuming. Something that got her mind off everything that was happening with Cord.
She frowned. Not that anything really was happening with Cord where she was concerned. Cord McCaffrey might be a successful politician with a family and a life, but he wasn’t actually parading those facts around to hurt her. It occurred to her then that up until this very moment she had kind of felt that way.
Like he had been senatoring at her. Rather than just living his life.
She wasn’t sure the realization made her feel all that much better. She wasn’t really sure how she felt about him going on with his life. That sobering realization was still sitting in the back of her mind when the front door opened.
It wasn’t Finn on the other side, or any of his brothers. Instead, it was Violet. “Hi,” the girl said, not quite able to manage a smile.
“Hi,” Lane returned, shifting her hold on the food, bracing it up her thigh. “I brought dinner.”
Violet’s expression remained neutral. “Are you my new mommy?”
Lane laughed, half shocked, half amused. Violet’s taciturn father was certainly a good-looking man, but there was only one Donnelly that got her pulse racing. Not that she was going to say any of that to the sixteen-year-old. Who made her feel kind of freaking old seeing as she did think the girl’s dad was sexy.
“Violet,” came a warning voice from somewhere out of view. “Could you maybe just...not be yourself for a few minutes?”
“No. All childhood propaganda I consumed during my youth insisted that I be true to my inner voice. And my inner voice is feeling sarcastic today.”
“That’s hardly noteworthy,” Cain said, coming into view. “Let me know when your inner voice is feeling human again, and maybe we can talk.”
“That might be a while. My human inner voice is on hiatus until it can make its way back to civilization.”
Cain grimaced. “Then I guess I have to get used to the gremlin.”
Lane was almost sure she saw the ghost of a smile playing at the edges of Violet’s mouth. But she couldn’t be totally certain because the girl turned and went back up the stairs.
“I brought dinner. She might want to come back down,” Lane said.
The older Donnelly forced a smile. “Probably not. She might creep down after everybody else is done. That way she can limit the interaction.”
“What’s she doing with her time?”
“Texting her old friends. Basically, throwing herself into the life she had, and ignoring the life we have now.” Cain rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought bringing her here would help with things. But she seems even unhappier than she did back in Texas.”
“She’s bored,” Lane said simply.
“She assures me her cell phone is all she needs for entertainment.”
“Right. But she’s lying. Even if it’s mostly to herself. Take it from me—an exceedingly well-behaved teenager in my day—she needs to stay busy.”
“Unfortunately, I kind of see her point about Copper Ridge. There’s not much to do here.”
Lane smiled. “I guess not. But it was the source of my salvation when I was about seventeen. I came here, got away from my parents, moved in with my brother. And I got my first job.”
“That’s what Violet needs,” Cain said, looking suddenly decisive. “Work.”
“It would at least get her out of the house for a while.”
“Do you know of anyone who’s hiring?”
Lane thought for a moment. “Actually, I probably do. I have a friend who owns a bakery in town, and she was just telling me she’s a little bit short-staffed. But I work on Main Street so I can keep my ear to the ground for all kinds of jobs. The bakery might be really fun, though.”
“It doesn’t really have to be fun,” Cain said. “Because right about now it’s that or military school.”
“Why would you consider military school?” Alex walked up behind Cain. “As you can see, the military did nothing to calm me down.”
“Can I come in?” Lane asked, holding up the massive container of food. “I am laden with carbs.”
“Oh,” Cain said, reaching out and taking the pasta from her hands. “Sorry about that. Usually I’m a little more considerate.”
“He’s not,” Alex said. “But maybe to women.”
“Don’t ask my ex-wife.”
“We can’t,” Alex said, “because she left. Because the problem was clearly her.”
“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Alex,” Cain said, walking ahead of his younger brother and into the kitchen.
“That means you can expect me to be a dick for the rest of the evening.”
“I already did.”
Lane flexed her fingers, curling and uncurling them, nerves making her stomach tighten and her palms sweaty. It was kind of crazy. Feeling nervous to see Finn. A man she had seen nearly every day for the past decade. And yet, she was almost vibrating with tension.
She had underestimated how difficult it would be to see him—for the first time since they’d been naked together—with an audience. An audience that was probably a whole lot more observant than she would like.
She heard footsteps on the stairs and looked up. Her throat went dry, tight, and then everything else tightened after. Her lungs, her chest... Her... Everything.
Finn. Suddenly, the whole world seemed to get quieter, seemed to slow down. He was... Well, he was kind of beautiful. She had always known he was good-looking, but she had never known it quite this way. This way that was coupled with intense, sensual pleasure at knowing exactly what it was like to feel those hands on her skin.
To know what it was to have his lips pressed against her.
He was wearing a cowboy hat, a tight black T-shirt and a pair of jeans that hugged his thighs and other parts of him she was now intimately familiar with.
There was a dusting of golden stubble over his square jaw, just enough to lend a gritty edge to all that male beauty he possessed.
“I’m glad you came,” he said, a small smile tugging the corner of his lips upward.
Her stomach fluttered in response. Honest-to-goodness fluttered.
“Me too,” she responded, her words breathy and completely affected.
She was acting like she was about Violet’s age, and had a crush on some new boy. Except the new boy was a man. A man who had been in her life forever. A man she was now seeing in a completely different light.
A naked light.
She ignored that dirty little thought and forced a smile. Tried to look normal.
“I see you brought dinner,” he said.
It was kind of a stiff, formal thing to say. And she had to admit she was happy that he was struggling with the right balance too.
“I did.”
Silence hung between them, and so did Alex, looking back and forth, a knowing smile on his lips. Lane shot him a deadly glare. If he said something, she would beat him over the head. Sure, Alex was actually older than her, but because he was Finn’s younger brother, he felt younger to her.
“Dinner,” she said brightly, making a broad hand gesture, which Cain took as a call to action.
He made his way into the kitchen and the rest of them followed. From there, the sounds of domesticity filled the air. Clattering plates, shuffling feet and appreciative sounds as everybody took the first bite of their pasta.
It made her chest feel warm. Gave her a sense of accomplishment. And then came a strange ache. A kind of wistful longing. For something intangible, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
But it got jumbled up with images of Cord and his family, his children, that normalcy. And then mixed up again with images of Finn from the night before, when they’d been tangled in the sheets.
She felt her face heat, her body growing warm. It was a welcome sensation next to that horrible ache she’d been grappling with only a moment before.
“I need to talk to you about something,” Finn said, moving over to where she was standing, watching everybody eat their dinner.
“Yes?” she asked, the question infused with a healthy dose of warning.
She wasn’t about to have any kind of discussion about last night with him here, with his brothers standing by. That was nonnegotiable. That was not happening.
“I had a little talk with Alex and Liam today. Though Cain wasn’t a part of this.” He raised his voice slightly. “You’re all committed to staying,” he said, directing that at his brothers. It wasn’t a question.
“We told you that before,” Cain responded.
“I know,” Finn said. “I’ll be honest. I figured the early mornings and the hard work would chase you off eventually. You all actually have places to go. You have money. You have options to have other lives. I’m crazy enough to choose this life. Crazy enough to love it. I had my doubts that you would do the same thing.”
“Who knows,” Alex said, “it might all change in the future. I’m not committing to being a dairy rancher for the rest of my life. But the Laughing Irish will always have my support.”
“I guess that’s all I can ask for,” Finn said.
His jaw was tense, his expression difficult to read. But Lane could sense his unease with the entire topic of conversation. His slight dissatisfaction with Alex’s answer.
“Where is this going?” Cain asked.
“I want to figure out how to make this workable for us. If we’re all going to be here, I don’t want us stepping on each other’s toes. I want us all to have a function to serve here. And I think that’s going to mean changing, expanding.”
“Are you actually giving me my way?” Lane asked, feeling slightly dazed.
“Kind of,” Finn returned. “But not just because you asked. Because I think it’s a good idea.”
“So, you’re talking about expanding into more specialty dairy products?” Liam asked.
“Yes. And that’s going to require marketing and business planning, and all of that stuff that you do,” he said to his brother. “And it’s going to require some extra manpower,” he said, directing that at Cain and Alex.
“Well, you have that,” Alex said.
“And Lane has a great idea to help broaden interest in products that are coming out of Copper Ridge. Her store is really popular, and she wants to capitalize on the current interest in subscription boxes.” He looked at her, a smile on his face that looked a lot like pride. That made her feel like her heart had expanded in her chest.
Made her feel like maybe she was doing something after all.
“I do,” she said. “I’m building a mailing list and I’m going to offer things on my website. But I’m also going to feature special products in the subscription boxes. I know I can ship cheese. The milk isn’t going to happen, but that I can stock in my store. I guarantee you, people are going to drive to get this stuff. No doubt, what you guys do isn’t easy. But the interest in locally sourced food and healthier products is good. We can capitalize on it.”
“I’d also like to invest in the start-up,” Finn said.
“Of the specialty dairy?” Lane asked, feeling a little bit confused.
“No,” he said, “of your expansion. Because we’re going to help each other, and I believe in your idea. It also made me believe in mine.”
She swallowed hard, her throat feeling scratchy, her eyes a little bit gritty. She was grateful, more than grateful. But she found it a little bit suspicious that he had agreed to all of this after they’d slept together.
Still, maybe that was looking a gift horse in the mouth. And for someone who had received not a lot in the way of gift horses she wasn’t sure she could afford to be suspicious of this one.
“I appreciate that,” she said finally, once she was able to force the words out.
“Look at us,” Liam said. “We’re practically a functional family.”
“We better hope it’s functional,” Alex said. “Otherwise, we’re all going to end up leaving here broke.”
“Well,” Liam said, “maybe you. I have plenty.”
“Don’t be so smug about that fancy degree,” Cain said. “I’ll have to give you a noogie or something.”
“Really?” Liam asked, his tone dry.
“Hey,” Cain said, “I’ve been an older brother all my life without any younger siblings around. I have some making up for lost time to do.”
The sadness of their situation struck Lane again. These brothers who should have had each other all of their lives, but were just now learning to deal with each other.
Of course, if Finn had had his brothers, maybe he wouldn’t have been such good friends with Mark. And if that were true, maybe he would never have become such good friends with her either. Maybe he wouldn’t have needed her as much.
Maybe he wouldn’t need her in the same ways now.
She banished that thought. She didn’t know why she was being weird and insecure. Almost... jealous of his brothers. Which was stupid. And ridiculous. Of course he should have a relationship with his brothers. A solid one. A good one.
She was just feeling off-kilter because of the way that things had happened between them last night. Yes, she needed to be alone with him. Needed to see how it would be when it was just the two of them.
The question was how did she want it to go? That, she didn’t really have an answer to.
“Lane says she’s going to help Violet find a job,” Cain told the room.
“That’s nice,” Finn said, his expression slightly tense.
“Well, I got my first job here. It gave me focus.” She wasn’t sure why Finn was looking at her all weird. Well, she had only one idea, and it didn’t make any sense.
“Where are you thinking?” Finn asked.
She filled him in on what she had told Cain earlier, and did her best to try and choke down her dinner. Finn finished before she did, and once his plate was clear, she set hers down even though she still had a bit left, and even though she was still a little hungry.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked him, her voice rushed. She really hadn’t meant to ambush him like that. To be so obvious. She wished that she had been a little cooler. That she had waited until they were kind of naturally alone. Or until he had said something.
But oh well, she hadn’t. Finn was the source of a lot of new experiences for her. Multiple orgasms in one evening, begging for what she wanted and an extreme lack of chill being just a few.
“Sure,” he said, walking ahead of her out of the kitchen. She could feel his brothers watching them, and she ignored them.
“Did you tell them?” she asked, as soon as they were alone in the living room.
“I don’t tell them what I eat for breakfast. Why would I tell them about what happened with us?”
She looked past him, at the floor-to-ceiling windows that were reflective now in the dark. She could only see herself. Herself and her very worried expression. “I don’t know.”
“Now,” he continued, “they might have guessed, because they aren’t stupid. And I disappeared last night from the bar without saying anything and came back this morning after they were all awake.”
“Oh. Oh... I just...”
Before she could say anything else she found herself being caught in his arms, drawn up against his hard body. And then whatever other words she’d been about to speak were cut off by the press of his lips against hers. “You just what?”
“Well,” she said, “I forgot now.”
“Excellent.”
“Except, why are you being weird about me helping Violet find a job?”
“I’m not.”
“Oh my gosh, Finn. Are you jealous?” She could have laughed, it was so ridiculous. “Are you jealous of your brother? After what happened between us do you honestly think I’m just looking to cruise the Donnelly clan?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do. And yes, you are. That’s ridiculous.”
Something in Finn’s gaze shifted, sharpened. It made her stomach turn over. Made her feel once again like a stranger was looking out at her from inside of her friend. It was a strange thought, maybe, but it somehow encapsulated the whole situation.
Finn as her friend was about as familiar as it got. Finn as a lover was another story entirely. It occurred to her then that she didn’t really know how he was with the women he dated. At least, not beyond casual observation.
She didn’t know if he was jealous, possessive. If this behavior was somewhat normal for him. Or if it was somehow unique to her. It surprised her, just how much she hoped this was just about her, and not simply the way he was with women once he’d slept with them.
It shouldn’t matter. In fact, she should be a little offended. A little insulted. Though, she imagined as off-kilter as she felt, he didn’t feel much better.
He didn’t know how she acted with the men that she dated either.
“Look,” she said, softening her tone. “I know things are different between us now...”
“Maybe for you,” he said, keeping his tone casual. “But for me, not much has changed.”
She didn’t know how she felt about that. Didn’t particularly know how to handle that statement.
“How?”
“You know. I didn’t wake up yesterday deciding that I wanted you. It’s been that way. For me, it’s been that way from the beginning. Which is why, to my thinking, this will work out just fine. I’ve been your friend while wanting you for a long time. I don’t really see the problem with being your friend and having you.”
A little thrill raced through her, a shock of heat. It was embarrassing just how strongly she reacted to him. But then, if what he was saying was true, he was more adept at handling everything between them than she was.
Not because she had never felt an attraction to him before, but because hers had gone unacknowledged for so long.
“Right. Well, I guess I’m the one in the weird headspace. But you’re being possessive. You know me. Do you honestly think I’m going to make a move on your brother?”
“He’s an attractive bastard.”
“Sure. He also has baggage.”
“I’m not exactly traveling light,” Finn returned.
“Okay,” she said, “maybe not. But your baggage doesn’t come in the form of a sixteen-year-old girl. And anyway, you’re the one that I want.” It was strange to say. Strange to admit. But it felt right too. “I was telling you the truth when I said I hadn’t been with anyone for about a million years.”
“How long is a million years?”
“A little longer than a year. That’s about a million in sex years, right?” She looked up at him, and the heat in his gaze made her stomach clench tight.
“Just about.” His voice turned husky.
The air between them turned thick again, and he wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her body up against his once more. She shivered. She didn’t think she would ever feel casual about this new intimacy between them.
Not the way that he did. The way that he just sort of assumed he could touch her, even outside of the bedroom. Even with his brothers right in the next room. While they were talking, like they might have done when they were only friends.
Except, really, they were only friends now. It’s just that there was another dimension added. Nothing had been taken away.
She drew a small amount of comfort from that.
Truly, she didn’t dislike the change between them. But she felt more than a little bit thrown off.
“I want to help Cain,” she said, “because it will help you.” She reached up, pressing her palm to his face. Experimenting with the casual touching herself.
“You think there’s anything that will help me beyond getting my grumpy brother off of my property?”
“It sounds like you’re making peace with that too.”
“In that way that you make peace with a terminal illness.”
“Well, that’s a nice way to think of your brother,” she scolded.
“I may need an attitude adjustment,” he admitted, a half smile curving his lips. “But I imagine you could help with that.”
“That depends what kind of help you’re looking for.” She reached between them, pressing her hand against his hard stomach. She was tempted, very tempted, to slide her fingertips beneath the fabric. Well, why not? They were here after all. They had already crossed the line. Hell, they had replaced the line entirely.
Why bother to pretend otherwise?
She did so, tentatively, the first brush of her fingertips against his skin sending an electric shock up her arm and down to the rest of her body.
“Maybe something like this?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said, dipping his head in closer, so close that she could feel the heat radiating from him, could have darted her tongue out to taste him right now if she wanted to.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked, sounding more like a breathy teenage girl than she would have liked.
“I’m definitely thinking about it,” he said.
“You’re really going to help me with my subscription boxes?”
“Are you holding your kiss hostage?”
She let her fingertips trail a little bit higher beneath his shirt. “No. But I do want to make sure that isn’t what you’re doing.”
“What?”
“Giving in to me because I gave you something you wanted. That isn’t why I slept with you. It really isn’t. And it wasn’t because I just wanted to try and salvage our friendship. It might have started that way. It might have started because I was afraid. But... When I said yes, it’s because I wanted you. Really. It wasn’t because I wanted your help, it wasn’t because I wanted your milk in my store—which right about now sounds like an inescapable euphemism.”
“That’s disgusting,” he said.
“Yeah, you knew what you were getting into.” She tried to keep her tone light, but she felt like she couldn’t breathe. “Anyway, I want to make sure you’re not just placating me. Because of... You know, the physical stuff.”
He frowned, a dark light in his eyes. “Give me a little credit, Lane,” he said.
“It’s not about credit. It’s about the fact that all of this is new, and it’s strange. I’m able to acknowledge that. It seems like you should be able to do the same.”
“No,” he said, “and that’s the point. The point I was trying to make earlier. I don’t think this is weird.” He moved his hands up her waist, pulled her in closer. “Feels pretty good to me.”
Her throat went dry, her heart pounding even harder. Suddenly, all she wanted was to be alone with him. Just the two of them. She would prefer the buffer of darkness, but she wondered if he would allow that yet. Or if he would still think she was trying to pretend he was somebody else. That wasn’t it. Not really. It was just that it was scary, revealing herself to him that way. Because he knew her so well.
Everything felt like it cost more. Like she had much more at risk.
With guys she just dated, she never really worried about looking stupid when it came to sex. They were men. Basically, if she showed up and brought her boobs they were game. She didn’t have to try. And if they didn’t like what she brought to the table, she was more than happy to let the relationship go.
She had a very casual attitude about dating. It was why she never lost her head over attraction. Why she had never begged a man for sex before. Because the man himself had never really mattered. It was just a part of the normal-looking life she had built for herself here.
A house, a business, a circle of friends and on occasion a man she was seeing. Who the man was had never been all that important.
Blending that in with Finn, with her relationship with him, and the position he occupied in her life, it felt different. Heavy. Exhilarating and light at the same time. And above all else so incredibly valuable that she didn’t want to do anything to break it.
And so now, she was focused on that. He had been candid about the fact that he had been attracted to her for years. That was a lot of fantasy to live up to. Maybe he had built her up to something in his head that she just wasn’t.
A sexual vixen she was not.
While she had been in some casual relationships, she was not into casual sex. She really hadn’t had that much of it. In the grand scheme of things. In fact, she imagined as twenty-eight-year-old women went she wasn’t particularly experienced.
Finn, on the other hand, was. And he tended to associate with women who were probably better versed in the carnal arts than she was.
If Finn was imagining she was some kind of sex kitten, he was going to be disappointed. Well, he hadn’t been disappointed last night. But there was still time.
He moved his hands down to her hips, tightening his hold on her. She could feel just how into all this he was. Could feel him there, hard and thick and pressed tightly against her hip.
She lowered her gaze so she didn’t have to look at him. Because she didn’t want him to see all of her conflict. Didn’t want him to see just how turned on she was by this simple, over-the-clothes touching. She didn’t want to want him more than he wanted her.
She couldn’t remember ever worrying about that before.
But there was something about this, something about him that made her feel vulnerable. She didn’t like it. She had worked so damn hard to not feel that way. To feel in control. That was what she had done here in Copper Ridge. Struck out on her own, built a life for herself.
Her own business, her own friendships—with only elements of her past revealed so that she could control how all those friends saw her.
To a degree, she had always done that with Finn. And now, that was over. She couldn’t control what was between them. He knew everything. He had seen her naked. And her heart just about fluttered out of her chest every time he looked at her now.
She was completely out of control. And unable to insulate herself.
“Yeah,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual. She forced herself to look at him. “You’re right. It’s not weird. I guess it’s okay.”
“In that way that it’s the best you’ve ever had,” he said, a cocky smile tilting his lips upward.
“Finn,” she said, a warning in her voice.
“Sorry,” came a voice behind them.
They jumped apart like scalded cats, then turned toward the sound. Cain was standing in the door, looking not even a little bit sorry.
“You will be tomorrow when I give you stall mucking duty,” Finn said.
“I just wanted to ask Lane if it would be all right if Violet came down to her shop around noon tomorrow. And if she would be able to arrange a meeting with her friend.”
“That should be fine,” Lane said, her tone as parched as her throat.
“Great,” he said, his gaze sliding back to Finn. “Honestly, it’s worth having to muck stalls.”
Then he turned and walked out of the room.
“I told you he was a bastard,” Finn said.
“Do you want to explain that?”
“His smugness? He’s a bastard, like I said.”
“I mean his clear interest in what is...happening between us.”
Finn lifted her shoulder. “I may have made a big deal out of the fact that you and I were only friends when they first met you. And this morning, when I came back home, they were very interested in where I had been and who I was with. I didn’t tell them.”
She thought about that for a moment. “And you didn’t want to tell them.”
“I didn’t know if you would want me to. I didn’t know what to say either.”
She was drawing a blank on her opinion on this. Because it occurred to her that the topic might come up with Alison, Cassie and Rebecca. And she wasn’t sure she wanted it to. She, too, wasn’t sure what she would say. Part of her wanted to keep this all to herself. Part of her was a little upset that Cain knew now.
But if they were going to be spending the night with each other, she supposed it wasn’t really practical for them to keep it a secret. If they were going to be together. Were they together?
Finn had said they would be friends who had each other. Kind of like friends with benefits, she supposed. Which was different from being a couple.
Also standing to reason, seeing as neither of them wanted a permanent romantic relationship. Neither of them wanted marriage or a family.
But did that mean keeping this a secret? Did she want to?
“You don’t have to make any decisions now,” he said.
Well, that was the nice thing about being with someone who knew you so well, she supposed. She hadn’t had to voice any of her doubts. He had just known.
“Well,” she said, “that’s good. Although, I imagine in terms of your brothers knowing, there’s no decision to make. Since they just know.”
“True. But that frees us up to make all kinds of other decisions.” Then he did dip down to kiss her, long and deep. And it went a long way in clearing up that unsettled feeling. When he was kissing her, everything seemed to make perfect sense.
When his mouth was on hers, tasting like Finn and sex and excitement, it all made sense. Not in a way she could put into words, but in a strange, unknowable kind of certainty in her chest.
“What kinds of decisions?” she asked, as soon as they parted.
“Well, to start with...your bed or mine?”