CHAPTER NINE
FINN HAD A strong suspicion he was hallucinating. The sun wasn’t up yet and he could hear voices and the sounds of clattering dishes coming out of the kitchen. That meant there was a strong likelihood his brothers had woken up before him. That was unacceptable.
He looked at the clock and saw that it was after five. Then he swore, grabbing his hat off the top of his dresser and heading down the stairs.
Partway down he met Cain, who had clearly also just woken up.
“What the hell is going on?” Finn muttered.
“I thought this was all normal for you,” Cain grumbled.
“Not the noise.”
Then he heard feminine laughter. And he was left in absolutely no doubt as to who it belonged to. He frowned.
When he got into the kitchen, he saw Lane standing there at the stove scrambling eggs. She was also talking cheerily to Alex and Liam, who were sitting on bar stools at the big marble-topped island eating pastries.
“Good morning,” Lane said, turning around toward him, a bright smile on her face.
“What are you doing in my house?”
She furrowed her brow. “I brought you chocolate croissants, Donnelly. I’m not going to take your guff.” She turned back to the pan, stirring vigorously before shutting the burner off. “And now there’s protein to go with your pastries. Coffee is ready. Have a seat.”
Cain, clearly not caring about the fact that Finn didn’t find this scene to be normal at all, took a seat beside Liam. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she returned, bringing a plate and the pan over to where Finn’s brothers sat. She set the plate in front of Cain then scooped him a helping of eggs. Then she added eggs to Liam’s and Alex’s plates.
Finn scowled. “I take it you had a relaxing evening at home with the pumice stone?”
She cleared her throat, shooting him a deadly glare. “I am descaled, as a matter of fact.”
“Right,” he returned, moving across the kitchen, not bothering to lighten his footsteps as he stomped over to the coffeepot.
“I do greatly appreciate this, Lane,” Alex said, his voice so smooth it sounded like it was coated with honey. “We have a long day ahead of us, and I can’t say that Finn is much of a cook.”
“If you have a problem with store-bought doughnuts you can cook your own damn food,” Finn said, grabbing the carafe and pouring himself a generous helping of black coffee.
“My friend and his brothers should never stoop to eating store-bought doughnuts,” Lane objected. “Not when I can easily get day-old treats from Alison. Or scones from Cassie.”
“I don’t need your friends’ butter-laden castoffs, Lane.” He took a sip of coffee, one that was too big, and scalded his mouth and his throat. It burned all the way down. He was being an ass, and he wasn’t even really sure why.
Except then images from the day before swirled through his mind, and he had a much better idea. Lane in her bikini, looking like too big a temptation for any man, let alone one who had been doing his best to keep his lust tamped down for a long ass time.
Lane, who had clearly been affected by him in some way and had run the opposite direction. And then had stood there, staring at him like she wasn’t sure if she was afraid he was going to bite her, or afraid she was going to bite him.
And now she was in his kitchen. In his kitchen puttering around like she had every right to be here. While his younger brother—who possessed about nine times the charm he did—flirted with her.
“Some people appreciate the gift of carbs,” she said, her tone brittle. “Sit, Donnelly.” She gestured to the stool next to Cain with her spatula.
“I don’t want eggs,” he said, knowing that he sounded slightly petulant. He took a step toward the tray that contained the croissants and lifted one up. “This will do.”
“You need protein,” she said.
“I do the hell not. If I want to carbo-load that’s nobody’s business but mine.”
She sniffed. “Fine.”
“I’ll take some more eggs,” Alex said, smiling easily as he looked over at Lane, and looked her over a little too thoroughly. Lane filled his plate. “Thank you,” he said, charm dripping from every syllable. The bastard.
Finn’s house felt too full. Too full and too different. When he and his grandfather lived here by themselves there was no noise in the morning. They drank their coffee, they went to work. That was it. None of this conversation crap.
And Lane had certainly never let herself in to make breakfast.
Everything was turned on its side, and he didn’t like it.
His home, this place that he’d made for himself, had helped his grandfather keep alive after the rest of his family had left him by his damn self, was out of his control now. And this need for Lane, the one he’d ruthlessly tamped down for the better part of a decade, was being tested. God help him, he didn’t feel like he was in a space where he could pass those tests.
Not when she looked at him like she had yesterday. With wonder and curiosity, and like she wanted to touch him as much as he wanted to touch her.
It was one thing to push it down, to steer clear, when he thought of her as vulnerable. As someone who needed protecting from his particular brand of passion and possession.
A whole lot harder when she looked at him like a woman looked at a man.
And harder still when she looked at him like a woman looked at a man and was presenting him with croissants.
“I have to say, this is about the grumpiest I have ever seen anybody who was being gifted with pastries,” Lane remarked.
“I have a morning routine, dammit,” Finn said, taking another sip of coffee and burning himself all over again.
“Yeah,” Alex said, “this is better.”
“How?”
“She’s way better looking than you, for starters.”
Lane smiled. “Thank you, Alex. It’s nice to know that I’m appreciated. At least by somebody.”
“I appreciate you,” Finn said. “But I think it’s weird that you let yourself into my house to deliver food. And now you’re cooking.”
“First of all, Alex let me in. Second of all, it’s awfully convenient that you want food from me on your terms, but when I bring it to you without being asked it’s suddenly a problem?”
Liam and Alex exchanged glances. “I don’t think you’re going to win this one,” Alex said. “I would turn back if I were you. And anyway—” he stood up off of the stool “—we have work to do.” He winked at Lane. “See you later.” He and Liam stood and made their way out of the room.
Cain finished eating, and he didn’t seem to notice the fact that Finn was mentally boring holes through the side of his head. Or maybe he did, and he just didn’t care, because raising a teenager meant that he was immune to any and all kinds of dirty looks.
“Thank you again,” Cain said, standing up and tipping his hat. All that was missing was the ma’am.
Obnoxious Texan bastard.
Then it was his turn to walk out.
“I didn’t realize you were so grouchy in the morning,” Lane said, snatching up the dirty plates that were sitting on the counter.
“Possibly because you don’t usually see me in the morning. Because you don’t usually invade my house.”
“Why is it a problem?” She dumped the plates into the sink with no finesse, the ceramic dishes clattering against each other. If they didn’t chip, he would be surprised.
“I...” He honestly didn’t know. Except that he was still wound up from yesterday, and it all centered on her. Well, and his brothers. The fact that he felt like his entire house had been commandeered. That nothing was his anymore.
Broken down like that, it made him feel a little less crazy.
“You’re mean?” She set about washing the dishes, her movements ferocious.
“Don’t wash those,” he said.
“Why not?” She threw her sponge down into the sink and it must have knocked one glass down into another, because there was a loud, dangerous-sounding noise. “I made the mess—it seems like I should clean it up.”
“First of all, I would rather you didn’t do my dishes because it sounds like you’re going to break them. Second of all, you made breakfast—you’re not cleaning up.”
“An unappreciated breakfast,” she said, sniffing loudly.
He sighed, grabbing the back of his neck and rubbing it. “I’m tired. I’m still getting used to all of them being in my house, and I did not expect to walk in and see you too.”
She frowned. “When did I become a problem? When did I become another person who was invading your space?”
He wanted badly to tell her that she wasn’t. Except the feeling persisted. That she was just another thing that felt too difficult to handle right now. But he wasn’t going to say that. Because introducing the subject was even more impossible than just having her here.
“It’s me,” he said, gritting his teeth. “It’s not you.”
She snorted. “Now it just sounds like we’re having a bad breakup.”
“We aren’t,” he said, his tone harder than he intended. “It’s not like that. Friends don’t break up.”
That was the bottom line. Friends didn’t break up. And she was a friend. It was one of the biggest reasons she had always been a friend, and nothing more. Why he had never, ever made a move on her. Not just out of his loyalty to her brother, Mark, but also because he valued the connection between them.
Yeah, he wanted her. But there were a lot of women to want. A lot of women to have for temporary moments in time.
There was only one Lane.
He repeated that over and over in his mind while he continued to look at her. She was hurt—he could see that, her dark eyes looking a little too bright in the dim morning light.
“Good,” she said. “Because you can’t.”
“I can’t what?”
“Break up with me,” she said, a thread of genuine emotion winding around the teasing note in her voice. “I mean, I know how to get into your house. You would never be able to get rid of me. It would make things really uncomfortable. You would be like, ‘Lane, I’m not speaking to you, why are you in my house?’ And I would be like, ‘you’re doing a really bad job of not speaking to me, since you’re speaking to me.’”
“That’s what it would be like?”
“Yes. So, you can see that it’s silly.”
“Definitely. You have nothing to worry about. I have no desire to break up with you.” Using those words to talk about the two of them was weird.
“Good,” she said.
She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, looking around, the air once again thick between them. He had thought that maybe it was just him. Until yesterday. And that made him mad all over again. It was one thing to feel attracted to her knowing that she was completely oblivious.
It was another when he had a feeling she sensed the tension.
“I have to go,” he said, using the cows as a convenient excuse.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to clean.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“And I don’t care. I have a while until I have to go open the store. Just let me help.” She reached out, like she was going to put her hand on him, and he took a step back. She stared at him, and then lowered her hand back down to her side.
“See you later,” he said.
“See you.”