by Vivian Arend
“Like that’s a hardship,” Finn drawled.
Zach laid a hand on his chest and attempted to look long-suffering. “Don’t know how I’ll survive. A pretty woman wants to spend the evening in my arms? Sheer torture.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, then Karen headed one way and Zach another. Finn made his way slowly back to the cottage because he’d had enough.
But Karen’s strange reaction kept coming back to mind over and over again. Why would she be all excited to share an idea yet be shocked when they moved on it?
If Finn had been tracking her down before, he would’ve had to work doubly hard now. Karen caught herself actively hiding from him.
From going into her bedroom early to getting up while it was still dark—which meant hellishly early at this time of year when by five a.m. the sun had already cracked over the horizon.
Of course, if she knew why she was hiding from him, it would make things easier.
The little touch of sex had only whet her appetite, so it wasn’t that. She couldn’t wait until he lost the cast, or at least wasn’t popping painkillers on a regular basis, because she knew from experience there were ways to get creative even while he still wore the awkward contraption.
She just felt shitty.
He certainly didn’t need somebody with a rotten attitude stomping into his world and making life more difficult.
She took herself off to Silver Stone to chat with her sister and visit with Kelli.
The cool sweet scent of the Silver Stone barn made the tension inside ease slightly. Karen found her step slowing as she wandered through the barn in search of her friend.
One of the barn cats paced slowly on the ridge of a stall. It paused to stare at her with glittering green eyes, slowly twitching its tail.
Some of the peacefulness inside Karen slipped away.
“Hey. Didn’t expect to see you today.” The voice drifted from above. Kelli stood at the edge of the hayloft, her arms folded on the railing. “Come to visit Dandelion Fluff?”
It was as good an excuse as any. “Partly. Partly to see you.”
Kelli gestured toward the ladder attached to the nearby wall. “Come on up. You can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
The top of the ladder opened into a loft like any other, with neat rows of sweet-scented hay arranged with military precision. Kelli sat on a low section, and as Karen approached, a mess of kittens came into sight, all crawling around the natural playpen formed by one slightly lower bale.
“You’ve been the Pied Piper,” Karen teased.
“I had early chores. This is one of the treats I give myself when I finish,” Kelli said. “Sasha and Emma always want to know where the babies are. That’s my excuse for why I track them down.”
Kelli caught one of the tabbies, lifted it to her face, and rubbed noses.
“It wouldn’t at all be because you’re a soft touch for a cuddly creature, because, of course not.” Karen scooped up Dandelion. “Hello, sweetie. Did you miss me?”
She got the most satisfying meow as he opened his little pink mouth. She pressed him against her chest, and he nuzzled her throat, little paws digging in.
The tightness inside returned with a vengeance, and now it was at the back of her throat, making it difficult to swallow.
“Hey. You okay?” Worry painted Kelli’s expression.
Karen shook it off and forced a smile. “Wanted to know if you’ve heard anything more about the wild horses. How’s the gelding you pulled from the pack?”
“Marmalade. He’s doing okay. Still a little willful, but he’s behaving better since we started giving him jobs to do.” Kelli leaned back, absently piling more kittens onto her lap as she spoke. “I was hoping to get out and check on Thor and his harem sometime next week. You want to come? Love to have you along.”
“If it works,” Karen said slowly. “It’ll be busy during the next couple of months. I swear Finn and Zach hired all the seasonal workers in the community, and they all want my opinion on things.”
“No problem. I’ll let you know when I end up with a free day to go exploring, and if it works for you to join me, great.” Kelli cursed softly, peeling a kitten off her arm that had started using her as a climber.
Dandelion was sound asleep in Karen’s arm.
She stared down at him, the little bundle of warmth. So trusting. So fragile.
At some point she had to stop avoiding the day. She carefully placed him back with his adoptive siblings, the mama cat meowing as she adjusted position to let another kitten latch on for a meal.
Peaceful. Sweet and content.
A million miles away from the sensations swirling inside Karen.
“Well, I guess I should get going. I haven’t finished my chores,” she said brightly as she got to her feet.
“Anytime. If you get a break in the afternoon, I’ll probably be working with Marmalade. You’re always welcome.”
Karen was just about to vanish below the level of the loft when Kelli called after her again.
“Oh. And I’ll see you at Tansy’s.”
Her pause was just long enough to feel uncomfortable, at least on Karen’s end. “That’s right. Girls’ night out is tonight, isn’t it? I can’t make it. Something came up.”
“That’s too bad. We’ll miss you,” Kelli assured her. “I’ll see you around soon. Tell Finn to heal up fast.”
“Will do.”
Karen kept moving, slipping into her day and forcing herself to work extra hard because when she was working, she wasn’t thinking.
And when she wasn’t thinking, that tight knot of frustration inside didn’t hurt as much.
Incredibly, she avoided Finn the entire day. It helped that at some point he and Zach took off to the bank to deal with paperwork regarding an error in charges that had to be dealt with in person.
Around five she got a text from Finn, but even that was easy to push off.
Finn: headed to Longhorn’s for dinner. Will swing by and grab you.
Karen stared at her phone for a minute before responding: not really hungry. You guys have fun.
She wandered around the house aimlessly for a good fifteen minutes before getting angry. That damn envelope was haunting her from the shelf. She felt like crying for no good reason, and she’d deliberately made it so that she was all alone instead of spending time with her friends or with the man who said he wanted nothing better than to be with her.
Foolish, irresponsible, and certainly deserving of having a shitty evening.
Something drove her outside to the fire pit. Finn had set it up with kindling, so it was a one match job to make things light. She sat in her chair, staring into the flames while the sun inched its way toward the mountains.
The stillness in the air felt unnatural. No birds chirped, and even the long grass beside the road seemed to be silent, the wind so light the strands were barely moving. Overhead, a hawk cried out. A lonely, eerie sound that brought goose bumps to her arms.
The predator on his own, looking for dinner.
Karen stared at the sky, one step away from crying.
Nearly an hour later, the familiar sound of crutches and a solo footstep carried across the deck then to the grass that led to the fire pit. The chair beside her creaked, and she opened her eyes but still avoided looking at him, staring instead over the distant mountains dusted with orange and pink.
Finn stayed silent for a bit, and then he held out a hand over the edge of his armrest. The chairs were far enough apart she had to be willing to reach the other direction and meet him in the middle.
She lifted her fingers to his.
A second later, she was tangled up tight in his firm grip, and the warning signs about imminent tears grew sharper. Dammit, this had to be hormonal, because she wasn’t this weepy and out of control.
When he didn’t say anything for a bit, Karen slowly relaxed.
A different kind of tension rose. The kind where she realized he’d been hon
est about what he wanted, and while she wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, if she was going to give more than lip service to this relationship, she had to be honest as well.
“I feel as if there’s this big black cloud hanging over me.” The words came out through an aching throat.
She glanced to her left to find Finn still staring into the fire. Nodding slowly.
“That’s not typical. Or it wasn’t, not five years ago. You got any idea why?” he asked.
She shook her head before realizing he couldn’t see her. “No. I don’t.” Frustration struck as well. “Okay, I know one thing that’s upset me, but I just need to get over it.”
He lifted his head and met her gaze. “Want to talk about it? You know I can keep a secret.”
His comment hadn’t been meant to make her laugh, but it did. “You definitely can keep a secret.” She grew serious. “I know my dad’s trying, but every time I’m around him, I keep expecting the same old responses I’ve had for the past umpteen years. I don’t enjoy spending time with him, and that’s absolutely shitty.”
His grip on her fingers tightened. “It’s not shitty. It’s real.”
“I feel so guilty. I mean, Julia wants to get to know her dad, and to her, this earnest guy is the only one she’s ever had to deal with. Tamara focuses on him being grandpa, and that seems to help. Lisa is like a duck and water just runs right off her back. But I don’t like him.” The admission nearly caught in her throat. “I worked with him for too many years. I know he’s done some really nice things lately, but…”
The understanding on his face didn’t wash away any of the guilt but at least didn’t add to it.
“A little while back he explained to Lisa he was trying, in some twisted way, to protect us. He figured being chased off the ranch would keep us from being hurt or killed, like the accident that took Mom. Which is fucked up and not right. It hurts to think of the time and energy I spent trying to make the ranch better, and all the while, he never wanted me there.”
Silence echoed for a moment. The fire crackled while her heart pounded after the harsh confession.
Then Finn tossed a grenade of his own. “I’m angry—so very angry—at the thought of how you were treated. And while your father did some things right, I don’t respect how he treated you. It makes it tough to think about doing anything with him, and I’m only feeling this secondhanded. I didn’t have to put up with the bullshit you did for so many years.”
Karen pulled her hand free to dig in her pocket for some tissue. This was no longer a no-crying zone, although—for now at least—her eyes were only leaking instead of her having full-out sobs.
Finn’s expression went stone-cold. “Don’t answer if you don’t want to. Did he ever do anything sexually wrong to any of you girls?”
Shock slammed her system. She shook her head vigorously. “Never. We’ve talked about it, too. My sisters and our cousin Anna. A no-holds-barred type of conversation when the whole Me Too topic started, so I know that’s not a secret hiding in the Coleman family past.”
The hard ridges of his expression softened slightly. “I’m glad. But don’t go thinking just because you didn’t have to deal with that issue that it means what you did put up with is minor. Because it’s not.”
His warning came at the exact moment she’d already been heading down that path.
He was right.
Didn’t make it any easier to ignore the rush of guilt. She’d had a roof overhead, food on the table, and a job to do. There’d been plenty of good things in her world—
She still hurt inside.
Karen spoke slowly, trying to put into words her biggest issue. “I spent a lot of years being told I wasn’t good enough, and that sinks in, no matter how much I didn’t want it to. And it doesn’t matter why he did it, it was wrong.”
“It was totally wrong. You didn’t deserve it then, and you don’t deserve this now.” Finn leaned forward, looking to catch her gaze again. “This isn’t something that will change overnight.”
“I know.”
He dipped his chin. “Your dad’s not the only person I’m angry at,” he admitted. “I have to be careful to not let the anger inside come out at the wrong moments. It’s something I’ve been working on over the last couple of years.”
Karen waited, but he didn’t say anything more about the source of his anger. She figured he would when he was ready. The more important point now was the other part. “How do you work on it? Punching bags? Ballroom dancing?”
He snorted. “I do a mean tango.”
“Especially now.” She glanced at his cast.
Finn leaned back, staring toward the sun as it dipped behind the rise, disappearing from sight. “I went to a therapist for a bit. We came up with some questions I run through when I hit the issues that set me off.”
“Go on.”
“Might sound basic, but it helps. I ask what’s my endgame? Usually that offers some different paths to head down instead of just blowing up.”
Karen thought about it. “When I get asked to go over for dinner with my dad, my end goal is to be a good daughter, so I should suck it up and go.”
He shook his head. “Fuck that. You are a good daughter. The endgame is for you to be happy and healthy, which means sometimes you’ll say no to dinner because you don’t have the energy to deal with him right then. Sometimes that means you might tell your sister you’ll come over but you’re leaving right when the meal is done. Or that you want to sit with your nieces.”
“But I should—”
“Be miserable?” Finn shook his head. “Ma chérie, it’s not your job to teach him how to be a good father.”
The words hit with the weight of an anvil.
Finn carried on softly. “You say he’s trying to do things differently, but he’s had so many years of being another way—he’ll fuck up at times and instinctively fall back into bad habits. You don’t need to volunteer to be in range while he practices not being an asshole.”
The tears that had been hovering were no longer willing to wait, and the floodgates opened. Because it was true. Every word scalded her soul and wrung her hard.
Curses drifted from him, then the sound of his stern voice broke through her misery as she wept, face in her hands.
“I can’t do this,” Finn growled with a rasp. “I can’t fucking watch you cry without holding you. And I can’t get up and scoop you into my arms, so chérie, you gotta come here. Come sit with me and let me hold you. We’ll get through this. We’ll find a way.”
A million and one excuses why it was a terrible idea shot to the surface, all of them knocked away with a firm memory of how gentle he’d been with her when she’d been the injured one. Karen rose from her chair, crossed the short distance between them, and eyed him with concern.
He caught hold of her, dragging her into his lap. Her hips settled on his good leg, and her body twisted toward him until she was cradled in his arms.
In his arms, her world adjusted. The darkness was still around her, but there was a protective layer as well.
Finn Marlette, lighting a candle in her heart that sent out thin tendrils of hope into the aching night.
16
What Finn wanted most was to be her hero. An impossible task considering his injured leg and the utter inability to change the past.
Regret struck at having fucked up five years ago and not coming back sooner to change her world.
Yet he knew those choices were not only in the past, they were impossible as well. He was the man he was today because of the past five years. And dear God, he hoped what he’d learned was enough to make their tomorrows what she deserved.
She was still crying, but softer now, hands clutching his shoulders, face buried against his neck. The sound of a broken heart.
He nuzzled his lips against her temple. “Cry all you want, ma chérie. Get it out so when you’re ready, we can look to the future.”
Finn stroked her hair over her shoulders and dow
n her back. Soft, sweet petting until she relaxed. Tension slowly drained away and left her pliable in his arms.
She tilted her head until their gazes met. “I’m not like this. I’m strong, and I get shit done and move forward.”
Her voice was a whisper, sorrow and dust.
“Crying is strong,” he insisted. “It’s your body saying enough pretending you aren’t hurt. Admitting you’re not Teflon takes a lot of strength.”
Sadness lived deep in her eyes. “I don’t want to feel like this.”
“No one wants to feel as if they’ll never measure up. And I get that you had that told to you an awful lot. Either in words or deeds.” He stroked his fingers under her chin. “It wasn’t true. It’s time you stop telling yourself that you’re not enough. That’s a good place to begin.”
Karen looked shocked. “I’m very competent at what I do.”
“Damn right you are,” Finn agreed. “I think you tell yourself that sometimes. But after observing for the past month, I’ve noticed you don’t always let other people say the same thing. And it’s not modesty but denial.”
Her mouth opened then closed as she considered. She stroked his arm, absently caressing him as if the touch helped center her. “So, my endgame is to admit I’m awesome?”
“That’s a good goal. But let’s talk for a minute. I use that question about endgame when I face a situation where my temper’s taking off. It works even better if I think ahead of time about what I’m working toward. You said you’re stuck in a cloud of darkness. I know you want to get rid of it. Aiming at a target makes it easier to step away from negative emotional distractions. It’s one of the first lessons our mentor taught me and Zach.”
Karen paused and glanced into the sky for a moment before speaking firmly. “I’m going away to school in the fall. Right now, I’m here in Heart Falls, spending time with my sisters and helping you guys get the dude ranch going.” She took a shaky breath. “I’m spending time with friends and going for horseback rides, which means I have zero reason to complain about anything because all of those things are fantastic.”
